Notes

Summary:

Africans participated in all the Spanish explorations and settlements in Florida, as they did throughout the Spanish Americas. In Florida they helped establish St. Augustine and the free black community of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose. Africans and African Americans fought in the many conflicts that wracked Florida, including the three Seminole Wars and the Civil War. Despite the oppressions of slavery and segregation, black Floridians struggled to establish their own communities, combat racism and economic deprivation, and negotiate the terms of their labor. Against overwhelming odds, they helped develop communities like Jacksonville, Tampa, and Miami, and they served as the critical labor force for the state's citrus, agricultural, and timber industries. For centuries, however, their heritage has been ignored. These twelve essays examine the rich and substantial African American heritage of Florida, documenting African American contributions to the state's history from the colonial era to the late twentieth century.

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edited by David R. Colburn and Jane L. Landers.

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Reissued tb by LibraryPress@UF on behalf of the University of Florida is work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works.b Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visithttps:// cr e ativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/.b/.You are free to electronically copy, distribute, and transmit this work if you attribute authorship.Please contactthe University P r ess of Florida (http://upress.u.edu)to purchase printeditions of the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specied by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribu tion, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of the above co n ditions can be waived if youreceivepermission from the UniversityPress of Florida. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the authors moral rights. ISBN --t-(pbk.) ISBN --t-(ePub) LibraryPress@UF is an imprint of the University of Florida Press. University of Florida Press Northwest th Street Gainesville, FL t-tb http://upress.u.edu Cover : Map of the West Indies, published in Philadelphia, b. From the Caribbean Maps collection in the University of Florida Digital Collections at the George A. Smathers Libraries.

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The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books SeriesIn tb, the University Press of Florida, in collaboration with the George A. Smathers Libraries of the University of Florida, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mel lon Foundation, under the Humanities Open Books program, to repub lish books related to Florida and the Caribbean and to make them freely ava i lable through an open access platform. e resulting list of books is the Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series published by the Li braryPress@UF in collaboration with the University of Florida Press, an imp r int of the University Press of Florida. A panel of distinguished schol ars has selected the series titles from the UPF list, identied as essential r e adin g for scholars and students. e ser ies is composed of titles that showcase a long, distinguished history of publishing works of Latin American and Caribbean scholar ship that connect through generations and places. e breadth and depth of t h e list demonstrates Floridas commitment to transnational history and regional studies. Selected reprints include Daniel Brintons A GuideBook of Florida and the South (), Cornelis Goslingas e Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast, ( ), and Nelson Blakes Land into WaterWater into Land (b). Also of note are titles from the Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. e series, published in in commemoration of Americas bicentenary, comprises twenty-ve books regarded as classics, out-of-print works that needed to be in more librar ies and readers bookcases, including Sidney Laniers Florida: It s S ce n ery, Climate, an d H istory () and Silvia Sunshines Petals P lucked from Sunn y Climes (b). Tod ays readers will benet from having free and open access to these works, as they provide unique perspectives on the historical scholarship

<> Acknowledgments I^^^^^^HHE ENJOYABLE PART of completing any book manu-i^^k script is the chance to say thank you to the many people who made the experience worthwhile and even enjoyable at times. We owe a special debt of gratitude to Addie Elder, our secretary, who communicated with all the contributors on a regular basis, talked to the special collections managers about photographs, and handled much of the correspondence with the publisher. Throughout she remained her usual personable, optimistic, and cheerful self, never let ting us doubt for a moment that the project would be completed on time. When we tired of dealing with this or that aspect of the manu script, we could count on her to take over the details while we tried to recapture our own commitment to the project. Our colleagues Jimmie Franklin, George Pozzetta, Bob McMahon, Darrett Rutman, Bert Wyatt-Brown, Kimberly Hanger, and Bob Zieger remained supportive throughout, despite the pressures of their own work. Each seemed to understand the importance of this work and continued to remind us of it as we labored through various stages. We also acknowledge the work done by other schol ars and friends in the field of African American history, which helped shape and define our own work, especially Peter Wood, John TePaske, Steven Lawson, William Chafe, Kathleen Deagan, Gwen dolyn Hall, Eugene Genovese, Frank Tannebaum, Jacqueline Jones, Joel Williamson, Dan Carter, John Hope Franklin, Colin Palmer, and Daniel Usner. We were aided throughout this process by the fine staffs at the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, especially Elizabeth Alex ander and Bruce Chappell; at the Florida State Archives, especially David Coles; and at the St. Augustine Historical Society, especially

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Page Jacobsen, Ken Barrett, and Cindy Bears. We received a great deal of help in gathering and reproducing photographs and illustra tions from Patrick Payne of the Office of Instructional Resources at the University of Florida, Darcie MacMahon and Max Nickerson at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Robin Lauriault at the Special Collections Office, Library West, University of Florida, and Joan Morris and Jody Norman at the Florida State Photographic Ar chives. We thank each of them for their considerable assistance. The University Press of Florida and its very able and talented staff offered us much advice and guidance throughout the process. We particularly thank Director George Bedell, Editor-in-Chief Walda Metcalf, and the editorial staff, especially Deidre Bryan, Alexandra Leader, and Larry Leshan. Whatever strengths this book has and whatever contributions it makes to enhancing our understanding of the African American past, we owe to all these good people. Any mistakes or problems are prob ably our fault, although we would be happy to share them with others. To our families, we thank Jim and Vance and Marion, David Jr., Katherine, and Margaret, who provided encouragement and occa sional diversion from the projectwhich probably delayed the book's final publication but which made the whole process and life gener ally more worthwhile. We also owe a special debt of gratitude to our colleagues who con tributed essays to this volume. They all have their own book-length projects underway but believed that this project was sufficiently im portant for them to put those projects on the shelf for the moment. We thank them for their personal commitment to this effort and for their ongoing study of Florida's African American heritage. We have dedicated this book to our colleague and friend George Pozzetta, who died much too early in life. As editor of The Florida Historical Quarterly and through his own work, George encouraged and inspired the study of all aspects of Florida's past and especially the study of the state's racial and ethnic minorities. He would have been delighted to witness the completion of this book and would have been the first to congratulate all its authors. We thank him for his wonderful support and very much miss his congratulations. David R. Colburn and Jane L. Landers Acknowledgments

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O 1 Introduction David Colburn EW READERS are likely to realize that Africans were among the first nonnative peoples to set foot in Florida. The free black conquistador Juan Garrido arrived with Juan Ponce de Leon's expedition in 1513, after having served with other Afri cans in the earlier explorations and the conquest of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Africans were, in fact, part of all the Spanish expedi tions in Florida, and they helped assure the success of the Spanish settlement established at St. Augustine in 1565. Almost two hun dred years later Africans and African Americans developed the first free black town within the present boundaries of the United States, Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, which stood two miles north of St. Augustine and was for some time the northernmost outpost of the Spanish empire. African American history in Florida continued to be a rich and di verse one in the post-Spanish era. With the advent of a United States territorial government, and later statehood, and with the growth of plantation agriculture, African Americans experienced a decline in their living conditions and had fewer opportunities for freedom. But they struggled, nonetheless, to negotiate the terms of their labor and the ways in which they conducted their lives. During the Civil War, for example, enslaved Floridians fled bondage and joined Union forces in order to secure freedom of those still enslaved. Despite the restrictions imposed by postwar segregation, black Floridians shaped their own lives and helped develop communities in the new urban

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centers of Tampa, Jacksonville, and Miami during the late nine teenth and twentieth centuries. While continuing to constitute the main source of labor for the citrus, agricultural, and timber industries, they also entered the new urban service industries in growing numbers. During the 1940s they joined the statewide and national struggle for civil rights against extraordinary obstacles. For centuries the African American heritage in Florida has been ignored by a white population unwilling to acknowledge that people of color had been instrumental in the creation of this state, that they governed themselves responsibly as free and independent people, and that they contributed in a variety of meaningful ways to the de velopment of Florida and the United States as a whole. In fact, the history of the African American experience in Florida has only recently begun to be examined, and it will take at least another generation of historical research and writing to bring citi zens of the state and students of Florida history to a reasonably full understanding of the African American contribution. The standard textbook on Florida for over twenty years, for example, contains almost no reference to the role played by African American peoples in the development of the state. In the nearly five hundred pages of text in Charlton Tebeau's History oj"Florida, black Floridians appear only occasionally, as slaves and as people whose lives were shaped by white Floridians. Tebeau's recounting offers very little understand ing of Florida's African American heritage. In fairness to Tebeau, it should be noted that he depended upon the scholarship of others. As he himself said in the preface, "This book is a synthesis of what we know about Florida's past." Few historians, however, had written about the state's African American heritage or its African American people prior to the revised 1980 edition of Tebeau's study. Indeed, Florida's history as it appeared in earlier textbooks has been a white man's story, portraying black Floridians as little more than a mass of humanity that stood somewhere in the background, contributing principally their physical presence and physical labor. It was first ethnohistorians and anthropologists, and later histori ans in the 1960s, who began to recognize African American agency in shaping the history of the Americas and the American South. Still, research on the African American history of Florida has lagged. Scholars of the colonial era and of slavery, like John TePaske and Introduction

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Peter Wood, have long recognized the importance of Florida and its African American history, and more than twenty years ago they called for studies of the state's early Spanish and British periods. His torians, however, have been slow to undertake this research. Part of their reluctance has been due to the obstacles in consulting the early documents on the African American story and on Florida, which are in Spanish and are held in the Spanish Archives. The other difficulty is that any study of early Florida has to come to terms with its con nection to the Spanish Caribbean world and to the colonial South. Florida's early history and especially its African American heritage is closely linked to both. This is at once the appeal and the challenge of Florida's early history. In fact, throughout its history, Florida's African American heri tage has typically differed from that of its southern neighbors, and it is these differences that make the state's past an important area for historical research. The political scientist V. O. Key, Jr., observed in 1949 that Florida was a unique state in his classic study Southern Poli tics in State and Nation, but Florida's differences long preceded the twentieth century. Its linkages to the Spanish and Caribbean worlds as well as to the British and the American South gave it a unique char acter in the colonial era. In addition, from its earliest years Florida has been a multiracial society of Native Americans, Hispanics, and Africans. The Spanish settlement in St. Augustine incorporated vari ous Native American groups as well as free and enslaved people from several African nations. This multiethnic heritage has attracted the contributors to this volume, who see the opportunity to revisit the arguments of such historians as Frank Tannenbaum, Eugene Geno-vese, and Peter Wood and to examine the recent work of historians Gwendolyn Hall, Michael Mullin, and Daniel Unser, whose com parative and interdisciplinary scholarship has reshaped our under standing of the early Americas.1 In addition to its multiracial cast, Florida offers historians another attraction. Unlike most other sections of the South during the eigh teenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, Florida had a number of free black communities, including the Mose site and Afri can, African American, and maroon villages in and around presentday Gainesville, Tallahassee, Apalachicola, and Sarasota. Florida served as a haven for African American and African slaves from the David R. Colburn 3

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British areas to the north who desperately sought freedom in Span ish Florida and fled there in substantial numbers, despite enormous obstacles. The role of Spanish Florida as a sanctuary for slaves was extraordinarily important for African Americans, but it also greatly concerned the British and Americans, who saw Florida as a major threat to their plantation economies. Even after Florida was ceded to Britain, the Seminoles who offered African Americans a refuge from slavery threatened the aims of white southerners in the United States. The history of Florida and especially of the African American experience is thus one of considerable complexity and importance. Throughout the two Spanish periods, the British period, and finally the American era, Africans and African Americans adjusted to many political and cultural transitions. In the process, they were both agents of and respondents to change. Despite the dramatic changes experienced by African Americans during this period, there was a surprising amount of continuity in race relations as Florida went from Spanish hands to British hands in 1763, back to the Spanish in 1784, and then to the United States in 1821. As a number of the con tributors to this volume note, Spanish racial traditions continued to influence race relations in Florida, in obvious and not so obvious ways, long after the Spaniards departed for the Caribbean and Spain. For these reasons, Florida provides an important environment in which to examine the policies and cultural practices of different nations and different peoples with respect to race. It raises important questions as scholars try to understand the nature of race relations of the respective nations that occupied and governed the region. To what extent, for example, did Spain's multiracial tolerance differ from that of the British and the Americans? In what ways did African Americans adjust to and restructure their lives and their environment as the governments of Florida changed? How did the Spanish racial policies influence those of the British and the Ameri cans in Florida? In what ways were British and American policies toward their slaves influenced by the presence of Spain and Native American nations on their southern borders? The uniqueness of Florida's racial traditions continued well be yond its early history, as V. O. Key has argued. During the postbellum period and into the twentieth century, Florida became much more a part of the American South and its racial patterns, but even dur-4 Introduction

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ing the Reconstruction and Jim Crow periods, some Florida cities had a multiracial cast that made their race relations distinct from those of their southern neighbors. Moreover, since World War II, Florida, besides remaining part of the South, has reestablished its ties to the Caribbean world and developed characteristics similar to those of the Sunbelt states that stretch from California to the Florida coast. It is this difference in perspective that has encouraged the contributors to this volume to reexamine the historiographical argu ments about urbanization, race, and crime made by such scholars as Edward Ayers, Dan Carter, Arnold Hirsch, Roger Lane, Jacqueline Jones, Howard Rabinowitz, and Joel Williamson.2 The Florida story is a record of what might have been in Ameri can race relations. It is also the story of human failing, of shifting international and national struggles, of African American agency, of multiracial linkages, and of a series of decisions to oppress a people principally because of their color, even though the historical record demonstrated their capacity for self-government and their desire for freedom for themselves and their children. Florida's racial heritage belongs not only to the past; indeed, it continues to influence our views of one another and to place race and color at the forefront of today's social and political agenda. The twelve essays in this volume examine the African and African American experience in Florida, from the earliest period of Span ish settlement and the establishment of the free African settlement at Fort Mose to the late twentieth century's racial and multiracial developments in Miami and their impact on African American residents. Along the way, the essays examine the African American heritage and experience through the colonial, revolutionary, ante bellum, Reconstruction, post-Reconstruction, and segregation eras. As in all collections of this kind, this volume is not intended to tell the entire story of the African American experience in Florida, nor is it capable of doing so, given the limited scholarly research in sev eral areas. Instead, it is meant to be an introduction, to chart the terrain rather than explore specific themes, and to suggest lines of inquiry that other scholars might pursue in search of further insight into Florida's past and into the African American experience. Jane Landers begins this collection by examining "Traditions of African American Freedom and Community in Spanish Colonial David R. Colburn

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Florida." Noting the importance of Frank Tannenbaum's book, Slave and Citizen, The Negro in the Americas, in initiating a comparative analysis of slavery, Landers contends that "Spanish Florida allows an alternative test of Tannenbaum's thesis since both Spanish and Anglo planters held slaves in the colony and competing concepts of slavery coexisted." Relying on records in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, in Cuba, and in the East Florida Papers, Landers traces black activ ism from the establishment of the free black town of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose through the second Spanish period. In the process, she finds that Spanish Florida offered Africans and African Americans greater opportunities for freedom and participation in society, the economy, government, and military service than they en joyed under the British. The Spaniards, for example, recognized that slaves had a moral and juridical personality as well as certain rights and protections that were not found in other slave systems. She also notes the key role played by "personalism" in Spanish Florida, which linked slave masters to slaves as godparents and which engendered a greater sense of responsibility and accountability for the existence of slaves by owners. The British, by contrast, "restricted free blacks, adopted a slave code based on that of South Carolina, and often sub jected slaves to brutal punishments." They also made it difficult for free blacks to obtain any but unskilled work, while the Spanish al lowed free black men and women to compete for jobs with whites. Landers notes that, under the Spanish system, Africans partici pated in many arenas of economic, political, and military life. Along the way they built extended family networks and a strong commu nity linked by church, economic, and military ties. These social in stitutions were valued by Spaniards and thus, while they served to enhance African American lives, they also facilitated incorporation into the Spanish community. Robert Hall's focus in "African Religious Retentions in Florida" centers on two issues: the degree to which African culture survived the slave experience and the question of whether slave religion was, essentially, a docile one or rebellious in nature. Hall, like Melville Herskovits, believes that these issues were not dichotomous but com plementary. Hall argues that it was through the church, in particular, that 6 Introduction

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Africans became African Americans and that it was the church that enabled them to do so without surrendering their African heritage. Examining the work of historians and anthropologists from Hersko-vits, Ira Berlin, and Mechal Sobel to Peter Wood, J. Leitch Wright, and William Bascom, Hall carefully documents the persistence of distinctive cultural patterns among Florida's black population up to the late nineteenth century. Hall characterizes the church as both a sanctuary and a portal for African Americans. It offered an institutional mechanism that shel tered them from the oppression of race and also enabled them to become Americans without losing their cultural identity. In 'Yellow Silk Ferret Tied Round Their Wrists/ Dan Schafer examines the experiences of African Americans in British East Florida in the period from 1764 to 1785. Utilizing the British records on East Florida and the papers of British Governor James Grant, Schafer reassesses Bernard Bailyn's contention that the region's eco nomic development efforts were a failure. Schafer demonstrates that the British established a successful plantation system in Florida involving rice and indigo, and he exam ines the lives of African American slaves in this British economic and social enterprise. In his description of relations between whites and slaves and of relations between slaves, he offers new evidence about work experiences, plantation management, ethnic origins of slaves, and the slave trade between Africa and Florida. In finding examples of interethnic jealousies between African-born and American-born slaves, Schafer builds upon the work of Gwendolyn Hall and David Geggus. These tensions among slaves, Schafer believes, help to ex plain why there was not more violence against plantation owners and their property when only one overseer supervised the activities of many slaves. He also notes, however, that when provoked, slaves resorted to violence on occasion, as when they drowned an overseer for his capricious and heavy-handed mistreatment. Despite sporadic violence and the loss of many runaway slaves who fled to lands occupied by the Indians, the plantation system in Florida, Schafer argues, was not only large and complex but also functioned very profitably for its British owners. He notes that in only seven years' time, several major plantations had started operating in East Florida. Profitable though it was for the British, the plantation David R. Colburn

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system took a tragic toll on Africans and African Americans, Schafer writes. After enduring enslavement in Africa and the harshness of the British plantation system, their lives were once again uprooted by the vagaries of international politics. As their masters prepared to retrocede Florida to the Spaniards in 1784, some slaves found them selves on a long and convoluted journey from British East Florida to the Caribbean and, in some cases, back to South Carolina. George Klos assesses the relationships among Seminoles, blacks, and whites in Florida in "Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835." According to Klos, the status of blacks among whites and Indians played a crucial role in the efforts of the United States to remove the Seminoles from Florida. As he notes, blacks moved much more freely in the Seminole world than they did elsewhere in the white South, and it was this relationship that concerned whites. They feared, in particular, that blacks who lived with the Seminoles were aiding slaves to flee to the Seminole tribes. Klos states that this was, in fact, happening. Not all blacks enjoyed equality and freedom in the Seminole com munity, but even the lowliest of blacks, according to Klos, felt they were better off with the Seminoles than as chattel slaves in planta tion Florida. Klos finds that white efforts to remove the Seminoles became quite complicated because blacks often acted as interpreters in negotiations between Seminoles and representatives of the United States, and blacks were anxious to maintain the Seminole presence in Florida as a buffer against the oppression of plantation slavery. Southern whites, however, were determined to eliminate any vari ance in slave patterns in the region, and they demanded that military officials force the sale or seizure of black Seminoles and remove the Seminoles from the region. Klos points out that such negotiations were doomed because the Seminoles refused to surrender the black members of their tribe. The demand for racial conformity by south ern whites led to one of the longest and costliest Indian wars in American history and one of the most ironic for the United States. Blacks and their Seminole allies opted for war to secure their free dom; white Americans chose war to secure the bonds of slavery. Larry Rivers's essay, "Troublesome Property: Master-Slave Rela tions in Florida," examines racial developments during Florida's ter ritorial and early statehood period, from 1821 to 1865. Rivers finds, Introduction

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as Landers and Schafer do in their essays, that the master-slave re lationship in Florida was both complicated and steadily evolving. He notes that American planters moved quickly into the north-central area of the region, which extended from north of Gainesville to south of Tallahassee, after it was acquired from Spain in 1821, and they established through their territorial council severe slave codes to secure control over the slaves in the region. But Rivers observes that these codes provide only a limited, occa sionally distorted picture of the master-slave relations that subse quently emerged. By examining the records of the plantations, Rivers finds that there was great flexibility in these relationships. Even when slave owners were inclined to exercise a heavy hand, for example, slaves resisted through feigned illness, work slowdowns, poor perfor mance, violence, and escape. In analyzing the practices of plantation owners, Rivers finds that they did not necessarily adhere to the slave codes. Many found it wise and profitable to permit slave marriages, to allow for some mo bility on weekends, to agree to town visitations and religious services on Sundays, and generally to treat their slaves in a humane fashion. In some cases, the actions of masters were motivated by their own decency, in others by their interest in improving the productivity of their slaves. Whatever the policies of plantation owners, they often found that even those slaves they considered most loyal or those who were closest to the family opted to run away to secure their free domto the utter shock and dismay of the owners. Making extensive use of the records of the Union and Confederate armies as well as personal correspondence, diaries, and newspapers, Dan Schafer reconstructs the experiences of African Americans in the Jacksonville area during the Civil War in "Freedom Was as Close as the River: African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida." Schafer finds that most slaves hesitated to flee slavery in the first year of the war because of the personal risks. But when Union troops arrived in Jacksonville and it was reasonably safe to cross their lines to freedom, slaves abandoned their masters in droves. Planta tion owners commented that it was "impossible to keep negroes" on the plantation. Most of the departing slaves, according to Schafer, took their families with them. Initially, Union forces were not sure how to handle the slaves, David R. Colburn 9

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Schafer writes, even returning some to their former owners. But as the war continued, with no end in sight, Union officers saw the wisdom of recruiting African Americans and assigning them to spe cific military actions. Building on the work of Ira Berlin and James McPherson, Schafer points out that the former slaves responded en thusiastically to the opportunity to participate in military action and to help free others. Schafer also provides a brief synopsis of the readjustment of the African American soldiers after the war. Supplementing the work of Leon Litwack in Been in the Storm So Long, Schafer finds that those who returned to the Jacksonville area "made diverse and indi vidual adjustments to postwar life," ranging from economic pursuits to efforts to enhance family and community life. Patricia Kenney's essay is an important local study of the estab lishment and development of a free African American community in La Villa, Florida, during the post-Civil War period that builds on Schafer's study of Jacksonville during the war years. Entitled "LaVilla, Florida, 1866-1887: Reconstruction Dreams and the For mation of a Black Community," her essay describes the efforts of blacks who had relocated in the Jacksonville area to secure freedom, autonomy, land, and opportunity. Kenney's study adds to the writings of historians Howard Rabinowitz, Robert Engs, and John Blassingame and their analyses of broad social, economic, and political trends among blacks in the urban South. But it also goes beyond their work by offering a particu lar examination of the process of black community formation, self-government, job creation, and social organization. Kenney's study also examines the African American experience as it took place in relative isolation from white interference during the immediate postCivil War period. Even though they were geographically separated in their own com munity, and perhaps because of it, black Floridians from La Villa, Kenney notes, still could not escape the pressures of racism and segregation that mounted in Florida and the rest of the South in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The residents of La Villa struggled to hold onto their community but found that their eco nomic and financial needs brought them increasingly under the influ ence of white Jacksonville. With the intrusion of the predominantly 10 Introduction

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white community into their lives, they gradually lost control of their local government and with it their own destiny. Indeed, in many ways, La Villa was too dangerous an example for whites to allow dur ing the age of segregation, for it demonstrated that blacks had the ability to govern themselves and to shape their own futures. In "Black Violence in the New South: Patterns of Conflict in LateNineteenth-Century Tampa," Jeffrey Adler explores the rising tide of black violence in a southern city and tests the validity there of Roger Lane's hypothesis about northern black violence. Adler points out that Tampa and the South as a whole were generally more vio lent than northern communities at this time, with rates of violence averaging more than three times those found in the North. He notes significantly that whites in the South used allegations of "mount ing black violence" to justify acts of retribution and lynching against blacks. Were white contentions about black violence, in fact, remotely accurate? In a sophisticated answer that explores the nuances of this question, Adler finds high levels of black violence in Tampa. But he adds that black violence arose out of an environment in which the legal system functioned for whites only, leaving blacks to look else where for equity. To protect themselves against the lawlessness and social conflicts that authorities allowed to take place within their community, blacks bore arms to defend themselves and also occa sionally to seek retribution. The results contributed to a significant level of violence in their lives. In "No Longer Denied: Black Women in Florida, 1920-1950," Maxine Jones brings to light the history of African American women in Florida. Relying on census data and a variety of primary and sec ondary accounts, Jones reconstructs the daily life of these women, from leaders like Mary McLeod Bethune to those who toiled in vir tual anonymity. Until Jones's research, the story of African Ameri can women in Florida had been a record buried within the poorly told history of the African American experience. Her essay recounts the activities of these women, their investment in their families, and their role in the development of Florida. As Jones's study reveals, African American women were central providers in their homes and took jobs in nearly every sector of the Florida economy: from schools to medical care to farming to indus-David R. Colburn

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try, and to domestic work. Despite the pervasive racism in Florida during this period, they found employment in a variety of unskilled and skilled areas, and they struggled to balance work and family life. Jones also reveals that a few prominent black women in Florida participated in the emerging civil rights effort to change the racial culture that suppressed opportunities for black men and women. They constituted an important, and generally ignored, element in the black community that took up the banner for freedom and op portunity in the post-World War II era. In "Under a Double Burden: Florida's Black Feeble-Minded, 1920-1957," Steven Noll examines the impact of the color line on Florida's invisible minority. Throughout most of this period, racism and segregation shaped the state's approach to addressing the needs of the black feeble-minded. Adding to the burden on African Ameri can families was the general poverty of Florida for much of the early twentieth century, which made it difficult for state officials to pro vide for even the most basic needs of its white population. Under such circumstances, Florida policy makers simply refused to provide any facilities or treatment for the black feeble-minded. Noll utilizes regional, state, and local records to examine both southern area and Florida state policies toward the black feeble minded and the role of the federal government in care and treat ment. He finds that the care provided by southern states for much of this period can be described at best as primitive. Noll observes that the federal government gradually became involved in the supervi sion of the feeble-minded in the 1930s and slowly expanded its role, until by the 1950s it was establishing minimum standards of care for both races in all southern states. In the process, federal authorities took steps to eliminate segregation in public facilities for the men tally handicapped. When Florida finally constructed facilities for the black feeble-minded in 1953, it did so not to meet the needs of these residents but to avoid being forced to provide integrated facilities for them. Without a facility of any kind for blacks, state officials worried that the federal courts would require them to provide one facility for all. In "Florida's Little Scottsboro: The Groveland Story," Steven F. Lawson, David Colburn, and Darryl Paulson examine race relations during the period from the end of World War II to the Brown decision 12 Introduction

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in 1954, through the prism of an alleged rape of a white woman by four black men. Encouraged by their involvement in the war, black residents in central Florida fought for the removal of segregation barriers in the South. From a voter registration campaign to resis tance to resuming low-wage jobs in the citrus groves, black Floridians demonstrated their opposition to the racial customs of the past during this postwar era. Building upon Dan Carter's work on racial violence in the prewar era, the authors note that whites in the central region of Florida had no intention of allowing the segregation barriers to be removed, and the Groveland rape charge against four black men revealed how far whites were willing to go to keep blacks in their place. The authors write, "With racial barriers under attack throughout the South, whites felt extremely anxious and . inclined to preserve their su premacy through violent means if necessary." Groveland involved the intersection of race and gender in which both traditional racial customs and gender roles were called into question. In contrast to the lynch law of the prewar era, the authors find that the community turned increasingly to the sheriff's depart ment and the courts in the 1940s and 1950s to maintain these artifi cial standards of the past. In the Groveland story, the NAACP and the Workers Defense League, a Socialist organization, were involved in the struggle to represent the needs of the black community. In the end, however, no amount of representation could save the accused defendants. Two were killed, one during the course of arrest and the other while being transported by the sheriff to trial. The extraordinary efforts of some whites to suppress the rights of the accused and to prevent a fair trial revealed the extent of their commitment to the region's racial barriers. Raymond Mohl concludes this series of essays by examining the rise of multiculturalism in the state and its impact on black Floridians in "The Pattern of Race Relations in Miami since the 1920s." Mohl focuses particularly on the relationships among blacks, whites, and Hispanics in Miami from the perspective of its black residents. De spite the city's prominence as an area of settlement for people of color from the Caribbean and Latin America, Mohl finds that multicultur alism has done little to ease the plight of Miami's black population. David R. Colburn

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At the same time that the community began to accept the civil rights reforms of the 196083 it became a refugee center for Cubans fleeing Castro. As Cubans settled into the city and sought employ ment, economic opportunities that would otherwise have gone to black Miamians in the aftermath of the civil rights reforms quickly evaporated as employers showed a preference for Cuban workers. Moreover, as the Cuban immigrants established their own businesses to meet the special needs of their ethnic group, blacks found them selves frozen out of these jobs. Mohl tells a devastating story of blatant and subtle discrimination that has left the promises of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 unfulfilled in Miami and has raised serious questions about such matters as fair ness and equity for black residents of the community. These findings for Miami parallel those of Arnold Hirsch in his study of Chicago. Like Hirsch, Mohl notes that Miami's political leaders often acted in concert with real estate developers to isolate local blacks and to deny them the opportunity to obtain more than menial work. The Miami experience underscores concerns of black Americans more generally about their continuing place in American society. Despite being one of the first groups to settle in Florida and despite their contribution to the state's development at every stage in its evolution, blacks remain at the bottom of the economic ladder. By passed by one of the state's more recent immigrant groups, African Americans understandably see race and color as the sources of their continuing deprivation. These essays suggest that African Americans are historically cor rect in their assessment and that Florida has yet to come to terms with its racial heritage, in part because the public remains so igno rant of it. Perhaps these essays will help to inform Floridians more fully about their multiracial past and contribute in a small way to a new age for the state's African American citizens. Historians often end their books and articles with the words "much research still remains to be done on this subject." This is a subtle way of establishing the importance of their study, justifying their ongoing work on the topic, and encouraging others to join them in enhancing the significance of the topic. Jane Landers and I and the other contributors to this volume believe this statement has particu-Introduction

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lar relevance (and we don't want to be subtle about it) for the study of African American history in Florida. As noted earlier, Florida and its African American story are at once part of the South and part of a larger world. In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the region stood within the Spanish empire, the antebellum South, and the Caribbean world. In the twentieth century, it stands as part of the South, the Sunbelt, and the sphere of the Caribbean and Central America. The opportunity for comparative study of the African American experience can only be suggested by this volume. As for the complex multiracial aspects of the African American story, remarkably little has been written about the interconnection between blacks and other racial and ethnic groups. And finally, every stage in the African American record in Florida needs further elucidation. Such studies will not only help us understand the African American experience in Florida; indeed, they will also contribute to our knowl edge of the larger world of which Florida and its African American population are a significant part. Notes 1. See Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas (New York: Vintage Books, 1947); Eugene Genovese, Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1976); Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: Norton Press, 1974); Gwendolyn Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992); Michael Mullin, Africa in America: Slave Acculturation and Resistance in the American South and the British Caribbean, 1736-1831 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992); and Daniel Unser, Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley Before 1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992). 2. See Edward Ayers, Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth-Century South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Dan Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South (Baton Rouge: Louisi ana State University Press, 1969); Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1985); Arnold Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Roger Lane, Roots of Violence in Black Philadelphia, David R. Colburn 15

0 2 Traditions of African American Freedom and Community in Spanish Colonial Florida Jane L. Landers ^^^^^^B RANK TANNENBAUM'S important book Slave and Citi- h zen: The Negro in the Americas initiated a long historiographic debate about the relative severity of slave systems and the transition from slavery to freedom in the Americas. Many subse quent studies examined these themes in plantation areas, where rapid development of export economies meant deterioration in slave life and reduced opportunities for freedom, and these works clearly demonstrated the flaws in Tannenbaum's analysis.1 However, to ex amine the origins of the significant free black class that intrigued Tannenbaum, and to focus on the agency of African Americans in the emancipation process, one must look beyond the plantation. Spanish Florida provides a perfect laboratory to test Tannenbaum's thesis, since both Spanish and Anglo planters held slaves in the colony and competing concepts of slavery coexisted. Tannenbaum's critics correctly noted that the institutions that he claimed made Spanish slavery less severethe church and the law were not commonly accessible to field hands in remote agricultural settlements; this restriction, however, does not mean that his argu ment was equally flawed for an urban setting or for a plantation system where slaves were able to connect to the economy and insti tutions of a city such as St. Augustine. Michael Mullin's recent study of slavery in the contemporary British Caribbean demonstrates how geographic context and the organization of labor and the slave mar ket also shaped the institution of slavery. Slavery in Florida exhibited

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a number of the features that Mullin contends mitigated the oppres sive nature of slavery: it was generally organized by the task system, and slaves had free time to engage in their own social and economic activities; slaves were able to utilize the resources of both frontier and coast to advantage; the trade in slaves was never massive, and the paternal model of plantation management prevailed, even on Florida's largest commercial plantation.2 In addition, the geopolitical pressures exerted by Spain's southeastern and Caribbean rivals gave slaves additional leverage and made the Spanish more dependent upon free people of color. Tannenbaum's contention that a lenient attitude toward manumission was crucial in a slave society, and that it foreshadowed the former slave's role in freedom, is also borne out in Spanish Florida.3 As Tannenbaum documented, Spanish law and custom granted the enslaved a moral and juridical personality, as well as certain rights and protections not found in other slave systems. Slaves had a right to personal security, and there were legal mechanisms by which to escape a cruel master. A slave could legally own and transfer prop erty and initiate lawsuitsa significant provision that in the Carib bean evolved into the right of self-purchase. Social and religious values in Spanish society promoted honor, charity, and paternalism toward "miserable classes," a category that included the enslaved. Although legal and social ideals did not always obtain, slaves in Spanish Florida made good on the institutional promises of freedom through creative and persistent individual efforts, aided by com munity support. The exceptionally rich documentary evidence on African Americans in Florida, demonstrates how, given the proper conditions, the enslaved could actually "work" the system. This is not to suggest that Spain and its colonies were free of racial prejudice; however, acknowledgment of a slave's humanity and rights and a liberal manumission policy made it possible for a significant free black class to exist throughout the Spanish world.4 It is not surprising, then, that African-born people, free and slave, played important roles in Florida's Spanish history. Indeed, their his tory dates to the earliest Spanish explorations of the colony. Several free Africans, including Juan Garrido, accompanied Juan Ponce de Leon when he "discovered" Florida, and by then they were already veterans of the Spanish conquest of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and 18 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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African-born explorer Juan Garrido, ca. 1519. The free African Juan Garrido par ticipated in the Indian wars in Hispaniola and Juan Ponce de Leon's "discovery" of Florida and is shown here accompanying Hernando Cortes on his campaign in Mexico. (Reprinted from Fray Diego Duran's, Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana y yslas de tierra firme. Courtesy of the Florida State Museum of Natural History.) Cuba. Other Africans, free and slave, took part in the expeditions of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, Panfilo de Narvaez, and Hernando de Soto, and slaves helped Pedro Menendez de Aviles establish St. Augustine, the oldest European city in what is today the United States.5 Florida's race relations and the patterns of African American society in Florida evolved during Spain's first tenure in the province (1565-1763). They were both shaped by complex interethnic relations and international political factors. Like other areas in the Spanish Caribbean, Florida suffered from early and dramatic Indian depopu lation and a shortage of European manpower, and this demographic imperative created a demand for black labor, artisan, and military skills. Florida's first slaves came from Spain, but thereafter royal offi cials and private owners imported slaves from nearby regions of the Caribbean, primarily Cuba. The Crown considered slave labor in dispensable in Florida, noting that the work of cutting and sawing wood for fortifications and ships was unceasing, and the entire gov ernment subsidy would not have been sufficient had wages to be paid. Jane L. Landers 19

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The government found many other uses for its royal slaves, such as quarrying coquina from Anastasia Island, making lime, loading and unloading government ships, and rowing government galleys. Pri vate owners of slaves employed them in domestic occupations, as cattlemen and overseers on Florida's vast cattle ranches, and in a myriad of plantation jobs. In times of crisis slaves were also incorpo rated into militia units and expected to help defend the colony.6 The hard and dangerous work demanded of them and various "pests and contagions" kept the slave and free black populations of Florida low through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Popu lation figures are scarce for the early years, but a census of 1600 counted only twenty-seven royal slaves in a non-Indian population of 491 people.7 By the end of the seventeenth century, however, numbers were upaugmented by imports from Cuba and incoming runaways from Carolina. By 1683 the free black militia boasted a complement of forty-eight men, and numbers of both free and en slaved blacks rose slowly through the early eighteenth century.8 During Great Britain's interregnum in Florida (1763-84) the colony's black/white ratio increased dramatically; however, many of the slaves introduced by the English departed with their masters.9 Hoping to encourage immigration and settlement of its vacant fron tier, in 1790 Spain instituted a head rights system. Within a few months three hundred whites had moved into the province bringing with them almost a thousand slaves.10 Florida censuses from 1784 to 1814 show that the black population was never less than 27 percent of the total throughout these years, and by 1814, blacks represented 57 percent of the total population of Spanish Florida. Free blacks aver aged 10 percent of the black population and sometimes approached 20 percent of that population.11 By the late eighteenth century, entrepreneurs in Spanish Florida had developed significant plantations with sizeable slave labor forces of fifty to one hundred slaves. These were often diversified operations managed by the task system, sometimes employing black overseers. Some plantations, such as those of Francisco Xavier Sanchez, were devoted to cattle, which required a mobile and fairly autonomous workforce, as did the timbering operations Sanchez and others man aged in Spanish Florida.12 By 1815 a workforce of 250 slaves labored 20 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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A modern rendering of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose in 1760, by Albert Manucy. This village, located about two miles north of St. Augustine, was built by Africans in 1752. Courtesy of the Florida State Museum of Natural History. in the various Panton Leslie establishments, which included trading stores, agricultural plantations, and cattle ranches.13 In most cases, several generations of slave families lived and worked together, and the paternal model of slave management was reinforced by religion, law, and community norms. Slave masters were often linked to their slaves as godparents, further underscor ing paternal obligations. Urban slaves also could benefit from the strength of "personalism" and popular understandings of justice and honor in the Spanish community. Slaves used these intangible, but very real, assets to improve their conditions, petitioning the courts when they were ill-treated, not materially provided for as required, or when they wanted to change owners. They also employed these assets to achieve freedom.14 Slaves of Spanish masters in Florida became free through a variety of mechanisms including manumission by their owners, coartacion, or gradual self-purchase, and judicial process.15 Other enslaved people Jane L. Landers 21

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St. Christopher's medal discovered at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose. One of the Africans living at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose in the eighteenth century made this pewter medallion, which was probably worn on a thong around the neck. St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers and of Havana, Cuba. Courtesy of the Florida State Museum of Natural History. adeptly exploited Anglo-Spanish rivalry in the Southeast to achieve freedom. In 1670 English planters challenged Spanish territorial claims to the entire Atlantic seaboard and established a settlement at Charles Town. Shortly thereafter, their slaves began escaping to St. Augustine, claiming they desired baptism in the "True Faith." Rather than return the runaways as English owners demanded, the Spaniards offered them religious sanctuary. A royal decree of 1693 22 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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granted "liberty to all . the men as well as the women ... so that by their example and by my liberality .. others will do the same."16 During the next decades more fugitives from Carolina straggled into St. Augustine, and in 1738 the Spanish governor established the runaways in the free black settlement of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, about two miles north of St. Augustine. While con ditions were harsh on this frontier, the black homesteaders were at least free to farm their own lands, build their own homes and live in them with their familiesin short, free to begin the process of com munity formation. Spaniards commonly administered subject popu lations through indigenous leaders, as they did at Mose. Florida's governor recognized the group's spokesman and the captain of their militia, Francisco Menendez, as the "chief" of Mose and referred to the others living at the village as his "subjects."17 This degree of au tonomy and Mose's distance from the Spanish city also served to de velop black community identity. The residents of Mose established complex family and fictive kin networks over several generations, and successfully incorporated into the founding group incoming fugitives, Indians from nearby villages, and slaves from St. Augustine. Community and familial ties were further reinforced by a tradition of militia service at Mose.18 The freedmen and freedwomen in Spanish Florida represented many different cultures and experiences, but over time they formed a fairly cohesive community. This process was assisted by a variety of mechanisms. Some ex-slaves shared previous work experiences and geographic origins. Others were related by blood or had formed af final bonds prior to entering Florida. In St. Augustine these bonds were consecrated in the church, and families were also joined in ritual kinship through compadrazgo, or godparentage networks. Such networks not only linked families horizontally, but in many cases compadrazgo also functioned to link clients vertically to important patrons in the Spanish community. In both cases the fictive kin were linked by mutual obligations, and they shared a pool of resources and talents greater than that enjoyed by individuals in the community.19 Free blacks testified in each other's behalf, working collectively to seek legal remedies in the courts and to obtain the freedom of their enslaved kin and friends. They also fought together in the free black Jane L. Landers

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' 7U ^/Jws ff$ fmms '* /* J%mSim XKeW *#. &$*. /#mt >4S*2#, Gum AN **** Jt^A** \ fm* ^im}* iSmm J*Hrmmi Cmm^m^^ j^m^m^^^ /' St. Augustine Cathedral parish record of the 1744 marriage of the free African Juan Fernandez, of the Carabali nation, and the enslaved Flora de la Torre, of the Congo nation. Fernandez was a resident of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, while Flora lived in the home of her owner in St. Augustine. On microfilm at the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Courtesy of the Florida State Museum of Natural History.

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militias and enjoyed certain privileges associated with military cor poratism, including exemption from tribute and civil prosecution. The loyalty and effective service of Florida's black militia in defend ing St. Augustine against British invasions in 1728 and 1740 and against later British-inspired Indian attacks earned them the grati tude of the governors and, perhaps, the Spanish citizenry.20 However, even their valor was not sufficient to prevent Spain's loss of Florida, for in 1763 the Treaty of Paris awarded Florida to Britain and re quired Spain to evacuate the province. Spaniards, slaves, free blacks, and allied Indians all boarded ships for Cuba, where the Spanish government resettled the multiracial Floridians.21 Under British rule (1763-84), black freedom in Florida became only a remote possibility. Anglo planters established vast indigo, rice, sugar, and sea-island cotton plantations modeled after those in South Carolina and Georgia, and wealthier planters, such as Richard Oswald, imported large numbers of African slaves to work them.22 Soon blacks were the most numerous element of Florida's popula tion. The American Revolution accelerated that trend, for after the Patriots took Charleston and Savannah, planters shifted whole work forces into East Florida, the last Loyalist haven in North America. The colony's population grew by about 12,000 persons, over half of whom were black, and the black/white ratio was approximately three to one. Although a small number of the blacks were free, for example those who had performed military service for George III, most were not. British Floridians restricted free blacks, adopted a slave code based on that of South Carolina, and often subjected slaves to brutal punishments. At the conclusion of the American Revolution, Florida was retroceded to Spain, and many slaves took advantage of the chaos of war and the subsequent colonial transfer to escape British con trol. Untold numbers found sanctuary among the Seminole nation, which had established flourishing villages in the central plains of North Florida. Others, however, claimed a refuge among the in coming Spaniards, and although the Spanish governor doubted the religious motivation of the latter-day supplicants, he was forced to honor the sanctuary policy, which was still in effect. After appear ing before notaries to be documented and to show proof of work, at least 251 individuals were manumitted under the sanctuary pro-Jane L. Landers 25

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visions. Their declarations identify family relationships as well as other linkages that existed when apparently unrelated slaves ran away from the same owner. Some had been on the run together for several years. Some were searching for family members from whom they had been separated. Many reported bad treatment by former owners. These individuals formed the nucleus of the free black com munity in the second Spanish administration of Florida (1784-1821), and it is possible that having experienced a much more restrictive form of slavery, they were all the more motivated to test the limits of freedom among the Spaniards.23 By this time the Spaniards had abandoned the peripheral mission-village system that had given rise to the free black settlement at Mose, but despite a more dispersed residential pattern, the free black community in Florida still demon strated vitality and cohesion, absorbing refugees from the American and Haitian revolutions and adapting to changing economic, social, and political pressures as needed over time. Prince Witten, his wife, Judy, and their children, Polly and Glas gow, were among those presenting themselves to be manumitted, and their lives demonstrate how exceptional and ambitious persons were able to maximize the benefits of free status in Spanish Florida. Notices from Georgia reported that Prince had run away to Florida "to avoid a separation from his family to which he is much at tached."24 Once Witten and his family were granted sanctuary in Florida, they adapted to the civil, religious, and military expecta tions of successive Spanish governments and prospered. The family's freedom was dependent upon religious conversion, and the children were baptized within a year of entering the province. Adult bap tism required prior religious instruction and usually took somewhat longer to accomplish, but in 1792 Prince and Judy were also bap tized. Later Prince and Judy had their marriage of twenty-one years legitimated by the Catholic church and became choice godparents for the black community, free and slave. Prince served as godfather to twenty-three children, and Judy was godmother to thirty-one chil dren, including the child of her slave. When Polly and Glasgow grew older, they, too, were popular godparents. Witten was a skilled carpenter and hired himself out to a variety of employers. He also earned money by working on government con struction projects, and by 1793 he and his family were living between 26 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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,'^.Vv *' :&:" Xz^^/^-^^r *? U&L out /c ft*j art, en en of tit 9f,*c-Jpf&iuij?Dt kAfJ. '' Mr- ~"\ Petition of the free African, Prince Witten (a.k.a. Juan Bautista Wiet), 1795. Although unable to write, Witten asked the Spanish governor in St. Augustine to grant him and other blacks land on the basis of their citizenship. Governor Quesada granted the request. Courtesy of the Florida State Archives.

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prominent white neighbors in the city. In the following year, Judy, a laundress and cook, acquired a female slave. Prince joined the free black militia, defended St. Augustine from attacks by the State of Muskogee from 1800 to 1803, and eventually attained the rank of lieutenant and heroic status during the so-called Patriot rebellion 0fl8l2.25 Treasury accounts, census returns, notarized instruments, and civil petitions provide insights into the lives of less notable members of the free black community as well. Antonio Coleman was a skilled tailor who also supported himself by playing the fiddle at dances. Manuel Alzendorf fished for turtles when he was not barbering, and several other free blacks reported that they worked at "what ever presents itself."26 A variety of economic opportunities existed in this Atlantic port city, and as they had in the first Spanish period, many free black males worked for the government: on fortifications projects, in the royal armory, unloading ships at the wharf, delivering the mails, cutting timber, and as pilots and oarsmen on government boats. Although in some major cities blacks were forbidden to com pete with whites in the marketplace, no such restrictions operated in St. Augustine. Free blacks were cartwrights, jewelers, shoemakers, tanners, butchers, and innkeepers, to name but a few of their varied occupations. One entrepreneur, Juan Bautista Collins, had mercan tile links to South Carolina, Havana, New Orleans, Pensacola, and the Seminole nation in the heart of Florida. He bought and sold everything from butter to large herds of cattle, acquired property, and like other ambitious free men of color in St. Augustine, observed the Catholic faith and joined the black militia.27 Although the lives of women are more difficult to document, records show that free black women in St. Augustine were laun dresses or cooks or had small businesses, selling crafts or foodstuffs.28 Others advanced themselves through unions with, and sometimes marriages to, white men of property. They managed homesteads and even sizable plantations, bought and sold property, including slaves, and entered into business agreements with both black and white townspeople.29 Miscegenation was a common and accepted feature of life in St. Augustine, and although most white men did not marry the black mothers of their children, they routinely ac knowledged their children at baptism and in their wills. Children of 28 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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interracial unions in St. Augustine often received education, train ing, or property from their white fathers.30 Free black parents also left properties, more modest, to their children. They tried to arrange good marriages for their daughters and sought to advance their sons by enrolling them in St. Augustine's parochial school or by appren ticing them to tradesmen.31 While their former slaves went about creating new lives for them selves, Georgian slaveowners complained bitterly about the provo cation inherent in Florida's sanctuary policy. Finally in 1790, Spain bowed to the protestations of the new U.S. government, delivered forcefully through Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, and abro gated the policy, but all who had already claimed freedom in Florida remained free.32 Enslaved people could no longer utilize Florida's religious sanc tuary provision to achieve freedom, but they still had the possibility of purchased or granted freedom. Access to work opportunities and a cash economy were requisites for achieving purchased freedom. Equally important, however, was access to the Spanish legal system, located in St. Augustine. Slaves had to be able to visit St. Augus tine to approach the court. Slaves resident on outlying plantations were sometimes brought into the city for baptism or sent on plan tation business. Others were assigned to work for certain periods in their owners' town houses. If they could not get to town any other way, some slaves ran away from the plantation to seek legal recourse in St. Augustine. There, the administration of justice was the re sponsibility of the governor, assisted by a counsel and a notary. The governor's tribunal heard the slaves' memorials when they reported abusive behavior, petitioned to change masters, objected to the terms of their sale, complained about manumissions promised but denied, or when they challenged the price an owner asked for self-purchase or purchase of family members. Specialists assessed the fair market value of slaves petitioning for self-purchase or resale, and in cases in volving the manumission of a minor child, a special advocate was as signed to protect the child's interests. Slaves commonly complained to the court that they were denied adequate food, clothing, or ac cess to church, all of which, by Spanish law, the master owed them. Usually these charges preceded a request for the court to establish their value and to permit them to seek new owners. Owners were re-Jane L. Landers

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quired to answer the charges before the tribunal, and usually, if the price was satisfactory, they agreed that the slave could, in effect, sell himself or herself to a new owner or buy personal freedom.33 Purchased emancipation was not common in St. Augustine, where most of the studied cases involved self-purchase. In five cases, how ever, husbands bought the freedom of their wives, and five parents bought the freedom of their children. In some cases, persons not ac knowledged as relatives paid for a slave's freedom. Average prices for adult slaves were between 200 and 300 pesos and children were usually freed for less than 100 pesos. The average day's pay for a man was a half peso and women commonly earned about half that, if they were lucky enough to have access to the city and paid em ployment. It would have been an arduous process to save a few hun dred pesos, much less what it would have required to free several family members. From 1784 to 1800 only thirty-four requests to pur chase freedom were considered by the governor's tribunal, although some cases included more than one individual. However, of the cases reaching the court, in only one case was freedom denied, and slaves were not reluctant to pursue legal avenues, even given the occasional opposition from powerful masters.34 The lengthy coartacion case of Francisco Phelipe Sanchez, also known as Edimboro, illustrates this point and provides unique in sights into the black community of St. Augustine. Edimboro, and his wife, Filis, who were (like Prince) Guinea-born, were the slaves of Francisco Xavier Sanchez, East Florida's wealthiest rancher and the government's meat and timber contractor (and creditor). Edim boro was a valuable asset to the Sanchez operations, for he butchered cattle, harvested timber for sale, and acted as an overseer on the ranch when Sanchez made periodic trips to Havana. At certain times of the year, Sanchez sent Edimboro to St. Augustine, where he was hired out as a butcher and lived unsupervised. Filis was also sent into the city to serve as a laundress at the Sanchez town house. This ac cess to the St. Augustine economy allowed the couple to earn money and begin the process of freeing their family. Edimboro and Filis served Sanchez for almost twenty years before Edimboro petitioned to secure their manumission gratis, in return for saving Sanchez's life. Although Spanish courts sometimes freed slaves for such acts, Sanchez wanted 250 pesos apiece for the couple. Edimboro found 30 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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the sum exorbitant, especially after he had just paid forty pesos to purchase the freedom of his infant daughter, and he then argued that, since Sanchez had received all his services for more than twenty years, he had been more than sufficiently reimbursed. In this argu ment Edimboro employed the concepts of contract, just price, and moral economy in seeking his freedom without paying. His mas ter, however, then exercised his legal right to ask how much money the couple had and how they had obtained it. Edimboro had saved 312 pesos earned since childhood through hunting, fishing, butcher ing, and doing other odd jobs. Later Filis added to this nest egg by washing clothes and selling baked goods and hand-crafted toys. The couple had also rented the top floor of a home on the main street of St. Augustine to put on dances for the black community, for which Filis provided refreshments, and the party-goers paid admission. Sanchez depicted the dances Edimboro hosted as depraved affairs where "throughout the night the Blacks loudly toasted the courtesy of Don Francisco Sanchez's slave, Edimboro." Despite Sanchez's wealth and standing in the community, his at tempts to defame Edimboro with racial stereotypes and to impede his emancipation were unsuccessful. Edimboro was well known to the people of St. Augustine as a hard and honest worker, and since Sanchez himself had so often entrusted him with responsibility and had never before lodged any complaints against him, Sanchez's lastminute charges did not convince the court. Meanwhile, Edimboro and Filis took steps to improve their position by being baptized in the Catholic church, and shortly thereafter they married. When the court met again, one assessor noted of Edimboro that "his con duct, abilities, love of work and presence recommend him," and although Sanchez argued that Edimboro was worth much more than the quoted 500 pesos, and that he himself had rejected offers of 800 pesos for the slave, the rancher seemed to understand that continued resistance was useless and finally accepted the price. With the down payment of 312 pesos, Edimboro became a coartado, and within four months after initiating his suit, he made his final payment to the court. The notary then gave Edimboro a certificate of freedom, "in virtue of which he shall be free, and reputed as free, and can enter into contracts, appear as a witness, and engage in all legal acts which the laws permit free persons."35 Jane L. Landers

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Like the Wittens, Edimboro and Filis became reputable citizens of the community. They acquired property (and debts), baptized their twelve children in the church, and served repeatedly as godparents and marriage witnesses for other members of the free and slave com munities, including slaves who belonged to their former owner, as well as Prince and Judy Witten. One of the couple's sons attended the free school taught by the town priest, and Edimboro and his sons joined the militia. Edimboro reached the rank of sergeant, com manding a unit of fourteen men, including his sons. They were often posted among the Seminoles (perhaps because of the Seminole con nections to cattle), and over the years Edimboro and his sons served honorably against a variety of Spain's North American and Native American enemies.36 Service against Spain's enemies constituted another avenue to freedom. During the slave revolt in Saint Domingue, thousands of the rebels allied themselves to the Spanish Crown and were organized into a force known as the Black Auxiliaries of Carlos IV. Among its leaders was Jorge Biassou, who commanded an army of 40,000 men and who outranked the famous Toussaint Louverture. When Spain concluded a peace treaty with the Directory of the French Republic, the Black Auxiliaries were disbanded and dispersed to various locations in the Caribbean and Spain.37 The decorated and wellpensioned Biassou, and his "family" of kin and dependent troops, chose relocation in St. Augustine, where they were absorbed into the polyglot black community.38 The Spanish governors were not pleased by the "proud and vain character" and "high temper" Biassou displayed, and they worried about the bad example he and his band might set. Still, they had no choice but to receive him. Biassou and his men were quick to re mind Florida's governors and the captain general of Cuba of their service in various campaigns in Hispaniola, of the promises made them by the king, and of their status as his loyal and free vassals.39 Biassou retained the title of Caudillo in St. Augustine, and the gover nors employed him and his battle-hardened men in guerrilla opera tions against hostile Indian groups terrorizing the colony from 1800 to 1803.40 Despite major differences in language and culture, Biassou's "family" quickly blended into the free black community. Within 32 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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three months of their arrival in St. Augustine, Biassou's brotherin-law and heir apparent, Jorge Jacobo, married Prince Witten's daughter, Maria Rafaela (aka Polly), effectively linking the leading families among the North American and Haitian refugee communities. Witnesses at the church ceremony and at the later baptisms of the couple's children included members of both families, along with other members of the black militia.41 When Biassou died, his friends and extended family arranged a wake, an elaborate mass, and a church burial with full honors. The governor and other persons of distinction accompanied the cortege to the church graveyard, as did drummers and an honor guard of the black militia.42 This ceremony was a dramatic display of the mili tary corporatism and the many family and social linkages uniting the disparate free blacks in Spanish St. Augustine. These ties were also evident at other communal events, such as masked balls and parties, militia reviews, parades and commemorative processions, feast day celebrations, church ceremonies such as baptisms and weddings, and even court appearances. Toward the end of the second regime, Spain's costly European wars and efforts to contain independence movements throughout Spanish America left it financially unable to support Florida ade quately. Deteriorating economic conditions in St. Augustine, and the rising prices of slaves, meant that fewer owners were willing to manumit slaves without payment.43 Nevertheless, the judicial pro cess was effective and might even be regarded as sympathetic to the goal of liberty, and slaves continued to pursue coartacion. And de spite reduced circumstances, some owners still freed their slaves for good services or reasons of affection until the Spanish left Florida. When Spain turned over the province to the officials of the U.S. territorial government, it did not abandon its free black citizens. As in Louisiana, cession treaties required that the legal status and property rights of free blacks be respected by the incoming government. Some free blacks, like Edimboro and Prince, who had acquired property and invested years of hard work in improving it, decided to stay in Florida and risk trusting the newcomers to honor their treaty promises. But Prince's daughter, Maria, joined her husband and most of the free black community in a second exodus to Cuba. Like their predecessors from the 1763 exile, they received government assis-Jane L. Landers 33

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tance as they remade their lives in Cuba. Finding the racial climate in Florida increasingly restrictive, other free blacks left for Cuba in the following years, and in 1857 another community of free blacks living in Pensacola departed for Mexico.44 African Americans who had made their free lives among the Semi-noles, rather than among the Spanish, were also at risk from the incoming Americans, who brought with them chattel slavery and a firm conviction of their racial superiority. These new homesteaders had long objected to the free blacks living in Florida, fearing their militancy, their alliance with Native Americans, and the dangerous example they set for plantation slaves. Georgia's governor, David Mitchell, had warned President Monroe that the Spaniards "have armed every able-bodied negro within their power . our south ern country will soon be in a state of insurrection." Patriot leader John Mcintosh echoed these sentiments in his own letter to Monroe, complaining that Florida was a refuge for fugitive slaves and that its emissaries "will be detached to bring about the revolt of the black population of the United States."45 In response, Monroe's government had covertly supported a num ber of hostile actions in direct violation of Spain's territorial sover eignty, including the Patriot War of 1812, a naval attack on the black and Indian fort and settlement at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River in 1815, and Andrew Jackson's devastating raids against Semi nole villages along the Suwannee in 1818. The same hostility toward free blacks living among the Seminoles, and the Seminoles' refusal to return their allies and family members to slavery, lay at the heart of the three Seminole wars that took place from 1818 to 1859.46 As they had since the sixteenth century, Florida's free black commu nities continued to shape international geopolitics in the Southeast, yet their existence and their impact has been obscured by traditional historiography. This brief review of the possibilities for freedom and commu nity life for blacks in Spanish Florida demonstrates that African Americans created viable and vibrant free communities when cir cumstances permitted. The institutional framework in place was sufficient for determined slaves to pursue freedom through legal channels, and Spanish Florida's particular geographic, demographic, 34 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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economic, and political factors enabled them to do so. Enslaved Afri cans adeptly manipulated a variety of political contests, as well as the demographic exigencies of the Spaniards in Florida, to secure their freedom in ways not anticipated by older Spanish law or by Tannenbaum. Through their own initiative, Africans expanded the emancipatory potential of Spanish law and reshaped their lives. In effect, they judged Anglo slavery by "voting with their feet" and by risking their lives repeatedly to forestall its advance into Florida, and their political actions seem to confirm at least the basic tenets of Tannenbaum's comparative analysis. Contemporary ethnohistorical studies such as those of Daniel Usner, Gwendolyn Hall, Kimberly Hanger, and Peter Wood show that Florida is not an anomaly, and that African Americans, free and slave, made pragmatic and astute political decisions based on their understanding of a variety of European and Native American political, economic, and social systems. These works also confirm that African Americans exercised more important and varied roles in the colonial history of the Spanish frontiers of the United States than has previously been appreciated.47 New archaeological studies such as those of Kathleen Deagan, Theresa Singleton, and Leland Fergu son are also unearthing the lost cultural and material past of African Americans in Florida and the rest of the Southeast, although many of the sites discussed in this essay have yet to be investigated.48 Together these new, more sensitive inquiries and methodologies tell us that the history of the United States and its race relations is seriously distorted by neglecting the complex and sometimes more empowered past that Africans experienced in Florida and in the colonial Americas. Notes 1. Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen, the Negro in the Americas (New York: Knopf, 1946; reprint, Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). Eugene D. Geno-vese, "The Treatment of Slaves in Different Countries: Problems in the Application of the Comparative Method," in Slavery in the New World: A Reader in Comparative History, ed. Laura Foner and Eugene D. Genovese, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 202-10. Rebecca J. Scoxx.ySlave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1890 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). 2. Michael Mullin, Africa in America: Slave Acculturation and Resistance in Jane L. Landers 35

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the American South and the British Caribbean, IJ36-1831 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). Jane Landers, African Society in Spanish St. Augustine (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, forthcoming). 3. Landers, ibid. Gwendolyn Hall finds the same dependence in Spanish Louisiana in her Africans in Colonial Louisiana, The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992), 242. 4. In addition to Hall's work (n. 3), other works that discuss free blacks in the Hispanic world include Kimberly Hanger, Personas de varias clases y colores: Free People of Color in Spanish New Orleans, iy6g-i8o3 (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming), and David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene, Neither Slave Nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972). 5. Jane Landers, "Africans in the Land of Ayllon: The Exploration and Settlement of the Southeast," in Columbus and the Land of Ayllon, ed. Jeannine Cook (Darien, Ga.: Lower Altamaha Historical Society, 1992), 105-23. 6. The king to Captain General Sancho de Alquia, April 9, 1618, Santo Domingo 225 (hereinafter cited as SD), Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereinafter cited as AGI); Fernando Miranda to the king, August 20, 1583, cited in Verne E. Chatelain, The Defenses of Spanish Florida, 15651763 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute, 1941), 138; Landers, African Society. A free black militia operated in Spanish Florida as early as 1683, and individual blacks were incorporated into primarily white units even before that time. Roster of Free Black and Mulatto Militia for St. Augustine, Sep tember 20,1683, SD 266, AGI. Both Hall and Hanger find that blacks filled similar military roles in Spanish Louisiana. 7. In 1581 the royal treasurer noted the arrival from Havana of twentythree men and seven women slaves, destined for work on St. Augustine's great stone fort, the Castillo de San Marcos. Report of Juan de Cevadilla, Jan. 22,1581. SD 229, AGI. Census of July 1600, SD 231, AGI. The number of privately owned slaves is not given, nor is a figure for free persons of African descent. 8. Roster of the Free Pardo and Moreno Militia of St. Augustine, Septem ber 20, 1683. SD 226, AGI. For a comprehensive look at the demographics of the triracial South, see Peter H. Wood, "The Changing Population of the Eighteenth-Century South: An Overview, by Race and Subregion, from 1685-1790," in Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, ed. Peter H. Wood and Gregory A. Waselkov (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988). 9. J. Leitch Wright, "Blacks in British East Florida," in Florida Historical Quarterly 54 (April 1976): 427-41. 10. Carlos Howard to Luis de Las Casas, July 1,1791, Cuba 1439, AGI. 36 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

of Africans from their operation on Bance Island, a major slave shipping cen ter in the middle of the Sierra Leone River. See Daniel L. Schafer, 'Yellow Silk Ferret Tied Round Their Wrists': African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784," this volume. 23. Census Returns, 1784-1821, on microfilm reel 148, EFP, PKY. Jane Landers, "Spanish Sanctuary: Fugitive Slaves in Florida, 1687-1790," Florida Historical Quarterly 62 (September 1984): 296-313. 24. Letter of Alexander Semple, December 16, 1786, "To and From the United States, 1784-1821," microfilm reel 41, EFP, PKY. According to this letter, Prince had attempted to escape twice before. 25. For information on Prince's escape and occupational contracts, see Census Returns, 1784-1821, on microfilm reel 148, EFP, PKY. For the bap tisms of Polly and Glasgow, see Cathedral Parish Records (hereafter CPR), Diocese of St. Augustine Center, Jacksonville, Florida, microfilm reel 284J, fol. 41, PKY. For the baptisms of Prince and Judy, see CPR, microfilm reel 284J, fol. 118. The multiple baptisms at which the Witten family members served as godparents are also in CPR, on microfilm reel 284J, PKY. The household appears in the city census of 1793 on microfilm reel 148, EFP, PKY. Prince's various military appointments appear in Cuba 357, AGI. In 1812 he commanded a guerrilla ambush of U.S. Marines and lifted the siege of St. Augustine. J. H. Alexander, "The Ambush of Captain John Williams, U.S.M.C.: Failure of the East Florida Invasion," Florida Historical Quarterly 56 (July 1977): 286-96. 26. Civil Proceedings, 1785-1821, Petition of Antonio Coleman, January 9, 1794, on microfilm reel 152, EFP, PKY; Papers on Negro Titles and Run aways, Testimonies of Manuel Alzendorf and Juan Baptista, August 8,1799, on microfilm reel 167, EFP, PKY. 27. Notarized Instruments, Suits brought by Juan Bautista Collins against Job Wiggins, March 22, 1798; Margarita Ryan, May 9, 1799; and Don Jose Antonio Yguiniz, January 16, 1810, on microfilm reels 166-167, EFP, PKY. Memorials of Juan Bautista Collins, December n, 1792, and November 29, 1793, microfilm reel 78, EFP, PKY. "The Panton Leslie Papers, Letters of Edmund Doyle to John Innerarity," Florida Historical Quarterly 17 (1938): 54. 28. Census Returns, 1784-1814, microfilm reel 148, EFP, PKY. 29. Black Marriages, microfilm reel 284L, CPR, PKY. Nansi Wiggins inherited hundreds of acres of land and a plantation from Job Wiggins, the white planter who was her common-law husband. She appears frequently in court cases and contested property deals, including a case in which she opposed her slave's attempts at self-purchase. Jorge Sanco vs. Nansi Wiggins, Civil Proceedings, June 4,1810, microfilm reel 160, EFP, PKY. 30. For instance, Don Thomas Tunno freed his slave Cecilia, and her 38 African American Community Traditions in Spanish Colonial Florida

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young daughters, Cecilia Francisca, age three, and Catalina Joaquina, age one, without acknowledging that he was the father of the children; how ever, he is stated to be their father in their baptismal records. Baptisms of Cecilia Francisca Tunno and Catalina Joaquina Tunno, August 2,1786, Black Baptisms, CPR, microfilm reel 284J3 PKY. Job Wiggins did the same for the children of Nansi Wiggins. Although their father died intestate, the legitimate white heirs of Francisco Xavier Sanchez upheld the inheritance of their mulatto half-sisters and -brothers. Testamentary Proceedings, F. X. Sanchez, 1807, no. 1, fols. 169-71, EFP, PKY. Both Hanger and Hall docu ment the same patterns for Spanish Louisiana; Hanger, Personas de varias clases, and Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana^ 25657. 31. Rules and Instructions to be Observed for the Governance and Direc tion of Schools, 1786, SD 2588, AGI; Roster of School Boys, March 25,1796, SD 2531, AGI; Notarized Instruments, vol. 2, Apprenticeship of Nicolas Mane, microfilm reel 168, EFP, PKY; Apprenticeship of Andres Bacus, May 8,1801, microfilm reel 167, EFP, PKY. 32. Governor Juan Nepomuceno de Quesada to Leonard Marbury, Au gust 23,1790, To and From the United States, microfilm reel 41, EFP, PKY. Thomas Jefferson to Quesada, March io, 1791, ibid. 33. Notarized Instruments 1785-1800, microfilm reels 169-70, and Civil Proceedings, microfilm reels 152-69, EFP, PKY. 34. Rebecca J. Scott has shown that by the late nineteenth century, the utility of coartacion in Cuba was limited both by distance from the courts and by rising slave prices, and that coartados represented only a small pro portion of slaves. Nevertheless, she agrees that the institution was important in developing Cuba's large free black population. Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba, 13-14; Notarized Instruments, 1785-1800, microfilm reels 169-70, EFP, PKY. Gwendolyn Hall's findings on the nature and number of emancipations in a contemporary frontier region of Spanish Louisiana are remarkably similar. Despite spotty records, she finds that a minimum of seventy-eight slaves were freed from 1763 to 1803. That rate is slightly surpassed in Florida. Hall, Africans in Colonial Louisiana^ 266-67. 35. Civil Proceedings, petition of Felipe Edimboro, July 6, 1794, micro film reel 152, EFP, PKY. Baptisms of Joseph Phelipe Sanchez, aka Edimboro, and of Maria Felicia Sanchez, aka Filis, July 15,1794, CPR, microfilm reel 284J, PKY; Marriage of Edimboro and Filis, July 29,1794, CPR, microfilm reel 284L, PKY. 36. Report of Fernando de la Puente, August 19,1809, microfilm reel 68, EFP, PKY; Review lists for the Free Black Militia of St. Augustine, 1802 and 1812, Cuba 357, AGI; Reviews of Garrison, 1807 and 1809, microfilm reel 68, EFP, PKY. Jane L. Landers 39

O 3 African Religious Retentions in Florida Robert L. Hall NOTTY ISSUES in African American culture and religion are raised by an examination of the religious experi ences of blacks living in Florida from the founding of St. Augustine in 1565 through the early twentieth century. This essay addresses the cultural distinctiveness of African Americans by placing spirit pos session and ritual ecstatic dance at the heart of the controversy over African cultural survivals in the United States. Because the cultural transformation of African Americans is best viewed as a dynamic process that occurred over a long period, a con sideration of the eighteenth century is critical to an understanding of the relevance of African cultures to American culture. The bulk of the essay, however, describes African survivals in nineteenth-century Florida. Although ritual scarification, naming practices, magical beliefs, and material culture are mentioned, emphasis is on religion as the matrix of nineteenth-century African American life and the centerpiece of African cultural influences in Florida. Revisiting a Controversy In discussions of African American religious life, two troublesome and interlocking concerns usually emerge. First is the question of the degree to which African culture survived in slave communities. Second, and closely linked, is the question of whether slave religion was essentially docile or basically rebellious. Too often, as David E. Stannard observed, historians have confronted these issues with a

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"sharply dichotomous approach": a given element of antebellum or postbellum black American culture either is or is not considered Afri can.1 Such an approach creates several problems. The assumption that a particular aspect of black culture can be neatly pigeonholed as either African or European in origin obscures a fundamental simi larity in the general pattern of the cultures of Africa and Europe that anthropologist William Bascom believed "justifies the concept of an Old World Area which includes both Europe and Africa."2 This ap proach also obscures the cultural blending process that Melville J. Herskovits illuminated.3 One unconquered problem of the African survivals theory ad vanced by Herskovits is identifying, as precisely as possible, the cul tural and geographical core areas in Africa that are relevant to the particular local New World black populations being studied. That is where earlier theorists went astray or were stymied by the truncated state of African historical studies in the United States at the time they were working. A significant part of the problem derives from impre cise or shifting labeling of the coastal and geographical areas from which the African ancestors of U.S. blacks came. Some writers and speakers who say that the African ancestors of black Americans came from "West Africa" mean the entire Atlantic coast, from the Sene gal River to Angola. Others use the same term but then proceed to cite ethnographic examples only from the area between the Senegal River and the Cameroons, omitting Kongo-Angola almost entirely, as did George P. Rawick.4 But recent research has shown that Angola and the Kongo are relevant to studying retentions, not only in the Caribbean and Brazil but also in the southern United States. Robert Farris Thompson, citing linguistic and artistic evidence, raised seri ous questions about the primacy of Dahomean and Yoruba groups in the New World and suggested that the Kongolese and Angolan influences were scarcely less important in either South America or the United States.5 As Bennetta Jules-Rosette suggested, "Many of the ambiguities concerning African musical retentions may be clari fied when the Central African cultural complex [as distinguished from the narrowest definition of West Africa] is viewed as a source for Black American expressive form."6 Linguistic evidence and data summarizing the origins of African newcomers to the lower South during the middle of the eighteenth century suggest that Central Robert L. Hall

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African Bantu influences were more prominent in the coastal zones of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina than heretofore recognized.7 The study of African American religious practices and magical beliefs is central to the controversy over African cultural retentions. In The Myth of the Negro Past, Herskovits wrote that "African reli gious practices and magical beliefs are everywhere to be found in some measure as recognizable survivals, and are in every region more numerous than survivals in other realms of culture," such as ma terial aspects of life or political orientation.8 In Herskovits's scheme of things, then, if one cannot find African survivals or influences in African American religious practices and magical beliefs, one can not find them anywhere. Although subsequent research by historical archaeologists has forced reconsideration of Herskovits's statement that "Africanisms in material aspects of culture are almost lacking," it remains accurate to say that religion constitutes the centerpiece of his tapestry of African survivals. The Eighteenth Century As Mechal Sobel indicated, "It seems likely that during the eigh teenth century large enclaves of several tribal peoples existed from Maryland south, although among each group many languages were spoken."9 Eighteenth-century planters in the lower South had clear ethnic preferences among African groups and appear to have at tached greater importance to origins than did their counterparts in the Chesapeake area.10 Ira Berlin argued persuasively that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries three distinctive slave sys tems evolved in North America: the northern nonplantation system, the Chesapeake Bay system, and the Carolina and Georgia lowcountry plantation system. According to Berlin, "The mass of black people, however, remained physically separated and psychologically estranged from the Anglo-American world and culturally closer to Africa than any other blacks on continental North America." Lowcountry blacks, Berlin argued, incorporated more of West African cultureas reflected in their language, religion, work patterns, and much elseinto their new lives than did other black Americans. Throughout the eigh teenth century and into the nineteenth century, low country 44 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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blacks continued to work the land, name their children, and communicate through word and song in a manner that openly combined African traditions with the circumstances of planta tion life.11 The experience of blacks in Florida during the colonial period was closer to Berlin's Carolina and Georgia low-country slave sys tem than to the two other systems. Indeed, well into the nineteenth century several Florida slaveholders perceived a particular style of speech among slaves as "low country." It was said that Primus, a runaway from Conecuh County, Alabama, "speaks after the manner peculiar to most negroes raised in the low country."12 Jacob, who escaped from E. T. Jankes in Florida in 1841, spoke "thick like an African negro."13 And John, a stout, dark-complexioned man who ran away from Gadsden County, Florida, in 1852, was described as "slow and low country spoken, having been raised in East Florida."14 The evidence provided by language and naming practices strongly supports SobePs notion that "several African languages may well have survived the initial slave trade into the Americas."15 The "Nine New Negroe Men" from the Gold Coast who were advertised for sale near Savannah in 1764 surely spoke their mother tongues.16 Over one-fourth of the advertisements for runaways printed in the Geor gia Gazette during 1765 indicated that the fugitives in question spoke no English.17 Since more than 40 percent of the African slaves who arrived in the British colonies of North America between 1770 and 1775 arrived in South Carolina, the Carolina experience has direct relevance to the history of blacks living in Florida during the eigh teenth century. Black fugitives from South Carolina and later Geor gia established a maroon tradition in Florida that persisted well into the nineteenth century.18 Other fugitives from colonial South Caro lina sought and received asylum, nominal freedom, and Catholic religious instruction near St. Augustine during the first period of Spanish rule.19 Fugitive blacks from the Carolinas and Georgia had been finding refuge in Florida since the late 1600 s because, as John D. Milligan pointed out, the area's semitropical climate, sparse white settlement, and chronic political instability made it an ideal haven for runaway slaves.20 Asserting the particularly aggressive character of the Florida maroon, Milligan concluded: "Quite clearly, if in the first Robert L. Hall 45

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place newly imported Africans had been encouraged by a propitious environment to found the maroon and to mold its activist charac ter, once they had established the tradition, American-born fugitives took advantage of that same environment to continue the maroon."21 The peak of the colonial import trade in slaves was probably reached between 1764 and 1773, a period that overlaps nine of the twenty-one years of British occupation of Florida. More narrowly, more than 8,000 black newcomers were landed in Charleston alone between November 1,1772, and September 27,1773.22 Thus the most recently purchased among the slaves brought to Florida by refugee Loyalists during the American Revolution were likely to have come directly from Africa. By 1767 Richard Oswald had more than one hundred blacks on his East Florida plantation, many of them shipped directly from Africa. Probably most of the Africans were secured through Charleston slave traders such as Henry Laurens.23 It was in 1767 that the first cargo of seventy slaves arrived from Africa in British East Florida.24 In the same year Governor James Grant esti mated that six hundred slaves were working in the province.25 Thus, even in the unlikely event that none of the remaining 530 slaves was born in Africa, no fewer than 11.7 percent of the blacks in East Florida in 1767 were shipped directly from Africa. Between 1764 and 1772 two ships from Africa arrived at St. Augustine (one in 1769 and the other in 1770).26 Then on the night of November 18, 1773, the Dover> with one hundred Africans aboard, wrecked near New Smyrna, losing two mariners and about eighty of the Africans.27 We also know that at least a few slaves residing in Pensacola in the 1760s and 1770s spoke African languages. A fugitive escaping Pensacola early in 1770 was described by his master as speaking African and Indian languages but no English.28 The persistence of African naming practices during the era of British control of East Florida (1763-84) underscores the probability that African religious patterns exerted continuing influence among St. Augustine's black population. J. Leitch Wright, Jr., discovered the names of fifty East Florida blacks from the British era, roughly half of whom were clearly of African origin, including Qua, who was pub licly executed for robbery in St. Augustine in 1777. Qua was a popular West African day-name (Akan group), meaning male child born on Thursday.29 Even as late as 1840 an occasional Ashanti day-name ap-46 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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pears in advertisements for runaway slaves, including another Qua, who had "one front tooth a little shorter than the others."30 When the government of East Florida was transferred back to the Spanish in 1784, 450 whites shifted their allegiance to the new Span ish government and remained in the colony. Remaining with them were two hundred blacks, the surviving nucleus of an East Florida black population that may have numbered more than 9,000 at the peak of the Loyalist refugee period. The immediate geographical and cultural roots for most of them were in the English-speaking colo nies of Georgia and South Carolina, especially the coastal region stretching from Cape Fear to Cumberland Sound. They partook of the Creole cultures developed during the eighteenth century in those regions. Evidence of the persistence of African naming practices during the second Spanish period is contained in a 1792 inventory of the estate of Dona Maria Evans, an Anglo-American who had migrated to Florida from South Carolina in 1763. The inventory lists a total of twenty blacks, organized into three nuclear family units of four, six, and two members, respectively, and eight unattached individuals. Some had African-sounding names: Zambo, Pender, Sisa, Fibi, Ebron, Congo.31 The eighteenth century, then, was not only the century in which the United States was launched politically; it was also the incubation period for what some historical linguists have called the creolization of African American culture.32 Religiously and intellectually, the question of whether to convert the African and African American slaves to Christianity was a focal point of debate among white clergy and slaveowners. Peter H. Wood suggested that the controversy over African American conversion was also a topic of heated debate among African Americans themselves and hence constituted "a for gotten chapter in eighteenth-century southern intellectual history."33 The Nineteenth Century In 1804 about fifty Africans, almost evenly divided between men and women, arrived in Florida and were settled on the St. Johns River, where their importer and owner, Zephaniah Kingsley, consciously eschewed the imposition of Christianity and other aspects of Euro pean culture. Kingsley, who generally purchased slaves directly from Robert L. Hall 47

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the African coast, adopted a policy of nonintervention in all areas of slave culture except manual training: "I never interfered with their connubial concerns, nor domestic affairs, but let them regulate these after their own manner."34 If these Africans continued their native dances for a number of years after their arrival, as Kingsley asserted, the likelihood is great that they also continued African styles of worship. In fact, most of the "native dances" that they perpetuated were probably part of their indigenous religious patterns. Although "salt water Negroes" from Africa became less numer ous following the official close of the overseas slave trade by the U.S. Congress in 1807, illegal imports from Africa continued. Some of the Africans entered the United States through Florida, which re mained under Spanish control until 1821. In October 1812 Richard Drake, an Irish-American and a U.S. citizen, made a slaving voyage from Rio Basso on the Windward Coast to Pensacola Bay.35 During the waning years of Spanish jurisdiction over Florida, a consider able stir arose over slaving activities from Amelia Island. Toward the middle of January 1818, two privateers, carrying a combined total of 120 slaves, arrived at Amelia Island. A week later a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives issued a report on the illicit introduc tion of slaves into the United States from the island.36 Besides the black populations concentrated around St. Augustine and, to a lesser extent, Pensacola, there were maroons who had man aged both to escape their owners in South Carolina and Georgia and to avoid the areas of Florida that were effectively controlled by the Spaniards. Large, quasipermanent maroon communities thrived in border areas that generated international rivalry. Close relations that had developed between blacks and American Indians in Florida when it was a Spanish territory continued into the American period. These black fugitives frequently settled among the Indians of north ern Florida, usually living in "Negro towns" associated with Indian villages. Although sources describing their religious behavior are scarce, provocative linguistic clues to their cultural status exist in the form of Florida place names conventionally described as being of un known origin. The river and town of Aucilla are near the site of the old Negro Fort (now known as Fort Gadsden). Variant spellings in clude Assile, Agile, Axille, Aguil, Ochule, Ocilla, and Asile. Winifred Vass, for twelve years editor of one of the largest and oldest vernacu-African Religious Retentions in Florida

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lar periodicals in Central Africa, suggested that Aucilla might de rive from the Bantu verb ashila, which means "to build or construct a house for someone else."37 Vass also suggested that the name of the Suwannee River might derive from the Bantu word nsub-wanyi, which means "my house, my home." A large black settlement along this river was destroyed in 1818 during the Seminole Wars. Perhaps as many as twelve hundred African American maroons were living in the Seminole towns by 1836. Because the black fugitives were better acquainted with the language, religion, and other ways of whites than were their Indian hosts and nominal masters, the blacks served as cultural go-betweens for Native Americans and whites. That this was the case in matters of religion is strongly suggested by the Reverend Isaac Boring's stratagem of preaching to the blacks of an "Indian town" as a way of gaining missionary access to the Indians them selves, the principal aim of his visits.38 Even after Florida became a part of the United States in 1821, it was not unusual to find Africans bearing tribal marks. In 1835, for instance, Charles, aged forty, who ran away from Henry W. Maxey near Jacksonville, bore "the African marks on his face of his country."39 While some "illegal aliens" from Africa may have been shipped directly, others probably arrived in Florida in the clandes tine Cuba-to-Florida trade. Despite wildly clashing estimates of the extent and significance of the trade, there is no doubt that some Africans bound for Cuba ended up in Florida. Milo, one of eight slaves transported to Florida on the schooner Emperor in 1838, said not only that he was from Africa but "that he was brought here from Havana."40 There is also the example of the lucumi slave encountered by the Swedish novelist Fredrika Bremer during her visit to Florida in the 1850s. When Bremer asked the middle-aged African whether he had "come hither from Africa," he replied yes, "that he had been smuggled hither from Cuba many years ago."41 Illegal slave trading persisted in South Carolina as late as 1858, when the slave yacht Wanderer arrived and small parcels of its cargo of four hundred Africans were sold into Florida.42 The African roots of modern African American culture in Florida had weakened considerably even as early as the Reconstruction era, especially in terms of the presence of individuals who had actually been born in Africa. By the middle of this era, we clearly are dealing Robert L. Hall 49

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primarily with a U.S.-born black population in Florida, as elsewhere in the South. Only eighty-eight African-born persons were enumer ated in Florida in the 1870 U.S. census. Among the more elderly of these Africans was Jeff Martin, aged 102, who had been born around 1768 in an unidentifiable region of Africa. Martin, who resided in Jefferson County at the time of the census, was the sole black Floridian who listed his occupation as "root doctor." He was one of twelve African-born persons residing in Jefferson County in 1870. Of seventeen other Florida counties having African-born residents, only Leon had as many as twelve. Of the 9,645 blacks counted in the entire 1870 census who were born outside the United States, 1,984 (20.6 percent) were born in Africa. Eighty-eight (4.4 percent) of all the African-born residents of the United States in 1870 lived in Florida.43 If Martin reached American shores at age ten, he would have arrived legally in 1778, the year Virginia outlawed the overseas slave trade. If he arrived legally between the ages often and twenty, he may have entered a port in Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Caro lina, or Georgia, which abolished the slave trade after Virginia did. Martin was by no means the only practitioner of herbalism or the occult. Both before and after the Civil War, black and white Chris tians were embedded in a cultural milieu in which "conjur" and other rural folk beliefs exercised considerable power. In her memoirs, Ellen Call Long mentioned Delia, a slave who "began to droop at about age 18" and soon died. After death the nurse (a character on every plantation), brought to my mother a small package of dingy cloth, in which was wrapped two or three rusty nails, a dog's tooth, a little lamb's wool, and a ball of clay. Trembling with awe, she said: "This is what killed Delia, ole Miss, I most knowed it was jest so. I most knowed as how she was conjured, and jest found dis under her matrass where she die." On inquiry we found that she was the cause of jealousy to a companion negro girl, who had made threats towards her; and moreover, we learned, that every negro on the plantation had known all the time what power was at work upon Delia, but dared not, as they expressed it, "break the spell," for the evil spirit would have turned on the one that told it.44 50 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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The slaves on this Leon County plantation obviously believed in the potency of the medicine man who had cast the spell on Delia. If all others in this slave community knew of the spell, it is very likely that the victim also knew. The combination of knowledge that a root doc tor was working magic against her and the belief in the power of such magic may have caused her literally to lie down and die. Such ap pears to be the case in voodoo death as described by anthropologist W. B. Cannon.45 Folk belief in sympathetic magic did not disappear overnight after the end of legal slavery. In an account set down in 1892, Ellen Call Long noted that "negro witchcraft" was thriving in Leon County during the early 1870 s. The occasion for her observation was the tragic death of five black children between the ages of four and six. Thus it was that near the end of the first decade of freedom to the negro, I saw one of the most remarkable exhibitions of supersti tion ever beheld by intelligencethe more so, that what I shall relate occurred in what was considered the purlieu of those most cultured and educated of the middle Florida country.46 During and after Reconstruction, black ministers contended with the power of both Divine Providence and folk beliefs. When in 1880 the horse of a black drayman died after the fellow had "cussed out" his preacher, the minister interpreted the man's misfortune as "a visi tation of Divine Providence for his cussedness." 47 Equally powerful was belief in the abilities of special individuals to cast spells on people who had wronged them. A man in Tallahassee, assisted by an elderly woman, astounded onlookers by appearing to vomit nails, moss, and other debris. "His friends believe strongly in the reality of it all," noted the Floridian, "and insist that he had had 'a spell' put upon him by a woman to whom he was engaged but whom he jilted and who now protests that she intends to pay him off for his base desertion."48 Most blacks living in Florida during the last half of the nineteenth century had been born neither in Africa nor in the Caribbean but in six southeastern states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, and North Carolina. In 1890,122,170 individuals, making up 76.3 percent of Florida's total black population, were native Floridians. Only 5.7 percent (7,411) of all Florida-born blacks lived outside the state of their birth in 1890, whereas between 11.1 percent Robert L. Hall 51

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and 25.9 percent of the blacks born in North Carolina, South Caro lina, Georgia, Alabama, and Virginia did so. Between 1880 and 1890 Florida experienced a net gain of 30,528 black inhabitants through interstate migration. During the same decade Georgia, South Caro lina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia experienced net losses in the black population. Put another way, a hefty 23.7 percent of the blacks living in Florida in 1890 had been born in other states, compared with percentages of 1.7 in South Carolina, 2.8 in North Carolina, 2.9 in Virginia, 6.6 in Georgia, and 10.0 in Alabama.49 If distinctive cultural patterns bearing traceable African origins are found in postbellum Florida, they cannot be explained simply by the presence of large numbers of African-born individuals in the state's black population. Other explanations must be found for the persistence of such culturally distinctive and widely acknowledged African-influenced elements of culture as basket-making styles, grave markers, mortuary customs, and shouting (spirit possession) in Afri can American religious rituals in the latter half of the nineteenth cen tury. These Africanisms had become Americanisms and persisted in Florida and elsewhere in the Deep South as integral parts of an inter connected circum-Caribbean Creole culture that had been forged in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina during the previous century and had alternately influenced and been influenced by the customs and lifeways of southern whites and Indians. Although native Africans still alive during the 1870s and 1880s lacked any significant influence because of their minuscule num bers and proportions, indirect and even direct African influence was possible. Some of Florida's older American-born black adults, such as the Reverend Eli Boyd, remembered deceased African-born parents and grandparents. A self-designated "Geechee" interviewed in Miami during the 1930s, Boyd recalled, "My grandfather was brought directly from Africa to Port Royal, South Carolina."50 The possibility of vivid memories of African-born parents and grandparents was underscored strikingly in a conversation I had with Richard McKinney, son of a black Baptist minister who figures prominently in the history of Live Oak's African Baptist Church. The McKinney family oral tradition posits links of kinship stretching from Jacob, an Ashanti African born around 1820, to the present.51 And while the proportion of Florida's black population born in Africa 52 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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had diminished to statistical insignificance by 1870, personal memo ries of African family ancestors had not disappeared even as late as the 1930s, when Shack Thomas, born a slave in Florida in 1834, re called that his father had come from the Congo: "Pappy was a Afri can. I knows dat. He come from Congo, over in Africa, and I heard him say a big storm drove de ship somewhere on de Ca'lina coast. I 'member he mighty 'spectful to Massa and missy, but he proud, too, and walk straighter'n anybody I ever seen. He had scars on de right side he head and cheek what he say am tribe marks, but what dey means I don't know."52 From these and other African ancestors, no longer alive when the census takers made their rounds in 1870, some older countryborn black Floridians like Mrs. Lucreaty Clark of Lamont (Jeffer son County) may have learned African basket-weaving techniques handed down across several generations, as did George Brown in South Carolina.53 Although South Carolina's African American basket-weaving tradition, which Peter H. Wood said "undoubtedly represents an early fusion of Negro and Indian skills,"54 is widely known and highly visible to tourists along the roadsides of the low country, less attention has been focused on the traditions of basket weaving still practiced by some African American craftspeople in Florida today. In describing the white oak baskets made by Lucreaty Clark, James Dickerson wrote: "Within her fingertips is carried the memory of an ancient African craft fast disappearing from the face of the Florida Panhandle. African slaves, once brought to the Pan handle to work on plantations, made baskets to hold cotton picked from the fields."55 The tendency once was to assume that in those instances when Africans did not bring African-made artifacts with them in the slave ships, there was no possibility of reproducing the ancestral material culture. That conception of how diffusion, even of material culture, works is entirely too physicalistic. The specific materials from which the artifacts are made is one thing; the form and design concepts are another matter altogether. The artifact might be most appropriately viewed as the analogue of a phenotype and the ideal traditional form as the genotype. What we see is not necessarily what the craftsworker has in his or her head. It is, rather, the end product of an interaction among the craftsperson's image of the cultural tradition or ideal; the Robert L. Hall

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materials available to work with; and the craftsperson's skill, practice, and ability to shape the materials in conformity with the ideal image. The ideal image is carried, not in the hands or on the backs of the African bondsmen, but in their heads. The reappearance of artifacts conforming reasonably well with African cultural ideas for pot, basket, chair, or door is therefore a mental feat before it be comes a physical reality. One archaeologist called the idea of proper form, which exists in the mind of the craftsperson who is fashioning an artifact, "the mental template," an apt phrase.56 Spirit Possession and Ritual Ecstatic Dance A high degree of emotionalism has often been considered character istic of black religious life.57 The frequency, long duration, and emo tional nature of black church services in Florida have drawn com ment from a number of observers. The image of black religionists as vocally demonstrative in their worship was so widespread that find ing a group of black worshipers during Reconstruction that was "not noisy" was cause for comment.58 While traveling in Florida in 1870 G. W. Nichols visited St. Augustine and Jacksonville, where he wit nessed "shocking mummeries, which belonged to the fetich worship of savage Central Africa and not of Christian America."59 If we sub stitute "traditional African religion" for the ethnocentrically loaded "fetich worship" and bracket the obviously biased adjective savage, an important kernel of historical truth may remain in this jaundiced account. What did Nichols mean by Central Africa in geographical terms? Was he making a distinction between West Africa and Cen tral Africa or was this simply his verbal shorthand for "primitive Africa" in general? In 1871 the Jacksonville Courier reported the com plaints of local whites about the duration of demonstrative services in a revival that continued several weeks.60 The same year Miss E. B. Eveleth, an American Missionary Society instructor at Gainesville, wrote that "many of those old church goers, still cling to their hea thenish habits, such as shouting and thinking the more noise and motion they have the better Christians they are."61 Eveleth and a col league attended a service at which a woman jumped up in the middle of a sermon, clapped her hands, screamed, danced up to the pul pit, and whirled around like a top before throwing herself back into her seat. She was followed by another woman with similar motions. 54 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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In an 1879 article entitled "Begin Worship Earlier," the Tallahassee Weekly Floridian reported that white citizens residing in "the neigh borhood of the colored people's churches" had complained about "the singing and exhorting at a late hour." Ever helpful, the Floridian suggested that "the colored people begin services earlier and preach short sermons."62 In 1873 Jonathan Gibbs, a Dartmouth-educated Presbyterian min ister who became Florida's first black secretary of state, was apolo getic about the ecstatic religious behavior of blacks. They "still preach and pray, sing and shout all night long," said Gibbs, "in de fiance of health, sound sense, or other considerations supposed to influence a reasonable being."63 One seeming example of how some black worshipers shouted in defiance of health was described by James Weldon Johnson. A woman known as Aunt Venie, out of re spect for her age, was "the champion of all 'ring shouters'" at St. Paul's Church in Jacksonville, Johnson recalled: We were a little bit afraid of Aunt Venie, too, for she was said to have fits. (In a former age she would have been classed among those "possessed with devils.") When there was a "ring shout" the weird music and the sound of thudding feet set the silence of the night vibrating and throbbing with a vague terror. Many a time I woke suddenly and lay a long while strangely troubled by these sounds, the like of which my great-grandmother Sarah had heard as a child. The shouters, formed in a ring, men and women alternating, their bodies close together, moved round and round on shuffling feet that never left the floor. With the heel of the right foot they pounded out the fundamental beat of the dance and with their hands clapped out the varying rhythmical accents of the chant; for the music was, in fact, an African chant and the shout an African dance, whole pagan rite transplanted and adapted to Christian worship. Round and round the ring would go. One, two, three, four, five hours, the very monotony of sound and motion inducing an ecstatic frenzy. Aunt Venie, it seems, never, even after the hardest day of washing and ironing, missed a "ring shout."64 Johnson's speculation that the sounds of the ring shout resembled the sounds his great-grandmother had heard in childhood is noteworthy Robert L. Hall 55

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because his maternal great-grandmother, Sarah, was born and raised in Africa. She was aboard a slave ship headed for Brazil when the ship was captured by a British man-of-war and taken to Nassau. It is fairly well known that African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne opposed the ring shout and tried to elimi nate all forms of religious dance. One shocking spectacle that Payne observed at St. Paul's A.M.E. Church in Jacksonville (where Aunt Venie shouted) left such an impression upon him that he recorded his frustrations in his personal journal in 1892. His frustrations were intensified by the realization that even the parishioners of a Wilberforce-educated pastor (who should know better) danced at an A.M.E. "Love Feast."65 Another eyewitness account may serve as a definitive example of this persistent, ritually induced and culturally patterned behavior known as shouting. Charles Edwardes, a white traveler, observed the event on a freezing January day some time in the early 1880s in an unspecified black church in Jacksonville. The building was filled with three to four hundred adults who initiated a "bread-and-water forgiveness festival" with the singing of this verse, repeated again and again: While Heaven's in my view, My journey I'll pursue; I never will turn back, While Heaven's in my view. Then the spirit possession began: One womanshe was almost a girlcried herself into what might have been a fit. But if a fit, it was of a kind well known to the other women, her neighbors, for two of these stood up by her side, and taking, each of them, an arm of her, they guided or supported her through all her contortions, with faces showing their amusement rather than concern. Even when she wrenched herself away from them, and threw herself backward, so that her head and the upper part of her body hung over into the next pew, they pulled her back and tightened their hold, while a third lady tried to put order into the dress and hair of the girland 56 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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not one of the three was so absorbed by her task that she would devote her eyes and ears to it exclusively.66 The foregoing descriptions have in common the depiction of religious hysteria or possession-like behavior, popularly known as "shouting," "getting happy," or "getting the spirit." Observed in cer tain black churches, it has been variously attributed to innate primi tive emotionalism, residues of African culture, or just the simple emotionalism of the unwashed and uneducated masses. In 1930 Herskovits raised the question of the relation of "religious hysteria" among peoples of African origin in the United States, Haiti, the Guianas, and the West Indies to similar African phenomena. But, as Herskovits pointed out, few answers were forthcoming in 1930 be cause little systematic study of the religious practices of blacks in the United States had been conducted from the point of view of the eth nologist.67 Certainly not all black churchgoers exhibit the same degree or type of demonstrativeness in religious ceremonies. The amount of heat and emotional ecstasy generated seems to be closely related to social position. "It is of no little significance," wrote Louis Lomax, "that these mulatto Negroes of the 'genteel tradition' were Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Congregationalists while the black masses were members of the 'common' churches, such as the Baptist and Meth odist congregations." The difference between the "genteel tradition" and the "common" tradition was to be found in the nature of the services. Those who claimed to be of the "genteel" group considered their services to be of a "higher order," which, according to Lomax, made their services "a good deal less exciting." The association of the black masses with denominations having the more exciting brand of services led the Reverend Thomas Lomax, a black Georgia Baptist firebrand of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and grandfather of Louis, to crack: "If you see a Negro who is not a Bap tist or a Methodist, some white man has been tampering with his religion."68 Some writers viewed the ritual known as the ring shout, or simply the shout, as a phenomenon found only among the Gullah-speaking blacks of the Sea Islands off Georgia and South Carolina.69 It is true Robert L. Hall 57

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Pastor George Morgan calls on parishioners to be baptized in the San Sebastian River, near St. Augustine, in the summer of 1944. The staff he holds bears a resemblance to Yoruba staffs from West Africa. Photograph by J. Carver Harris. Courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society. that some of the most vivid eyewitness accounts of shouts originated in that region. Laura M. Towne, for example, described the shout as a religious ceremony representing possibly a modification of "the negro's regular dances; which may have had its origin in some native African dance."70 Bernard Katz wrote that the antebellum and Civil War era shout usually came after the praise meeting was over, and no one but church members were expected to join.71 The musicolo gist Eileen Southern considered the shout, held after the regularly scheduled service, to be "purely African in form and tradition," arguing that "it simply represented the survival of African tradition in the New World."72 If this argument is accepted, there can be little doubt that the religious-musical-dance-drama form called the shout 58 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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Members of the Shiloh Baptist Church on King Street in St. Augustine gather at Fiddler's Flat, on the banks of the San Sebastian River, to watch a baptism in 1944. Photograph by J. Carver Harris. Courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society. exhibited a remarkable stability over time. The ring shout described by James Weldon Johnson probably happened in the late 1870s or early 1880s. In antebellum times, when most of the furnishings of the praise houses in which the shouts occurred were movable, the physical form of the shout was rather literally a ring. Wooden chairs or benches that were not nailed to the floor of the cabins were easily moved to the side, leaving empty floor space in the center of the building. After the Civil War the circular form of the shout probably persisted longest in churches with movable seats. With the appear ance of heavy wooden pews, which were usually permanently riveted to the floor, the circular form of the shout had to be either modified or abandoned altogether. Spirit possession pushes us toward direct confrontation with what Robert L. Hall 59

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has been called the Frazier-Herskovits debate over the extent and impact of African cultural influences in various parts of the Western Hemisphere. Two kinds of altered states of consciousness are per tinent heredrug trance and possession trance, both of which are widespread. In a survey of altered states in 488 societies, Erika Bourguignon found possession trance to be prevalent in (but of course not limited to) continental Africa. Bourguignon and others influ enced by Herskovits argued, "It is clear that possession trance in Haiti is historically related to what is essentially the same phenome non in West Africa and in other West African-derived societies in the Americas."73 If so, there is every reason to expect that similar behaviors exhibited by Western and Central African-derived black populations in the United States are historically related to those parts of Africa. Possession behaviors are learned in both formal and infor mal ways, along with beliefs and associated ritual action. In human communities that view possession as a peak religious experience, the behavior is widely interpreted as a communal event, an act that helps cement a spiritual and social community. One universal aspect of spirit possession is the accompaniment of drumbeats or drumlike rhythms. Although little systematic research has been conducted, Andrew Neher offered a tentative physiological explanation of the behavior found in ceremonies involving drums. "This behavior," he wrote, "is often described as a trance in which the individual experiences unusual perceptions or hallucinations. In the extreme case, twitching of the body and generalized convulsion are reported." Neher found support for the notion that "the behav ior is the result primarily of the effects of rhythmic drumming on the central nervous system." Drumbeats are made up of many fre quencies that are transmitted along different nerve pathways in the brain. Since low-frequency receptors of the ear are more resistant to damage than high-frequency receptors, "It would be possible to transmit more energy to the brain with a drum than with a stimulus of a higher frequency." In a second part of his study, Neher obtained responses to drumming that were similar to responses observed with rhythmic light stimulation of the brain. He argued that possession takes place when drum, or drumlike, pulses are used deliberately in rituals to bring about a state of dissociation, or trance. Analyses of the drum rhythms of the beer dance of the Lala of Northern Rhode-African Religious Retentions in Florida

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sia, the Sogo dance of the Ewe of Ghana, the beer dance of the Nsenga of Central Africa, and of Vodoun, Ifo, and Juba dances in recorded Haitian music found that the agitated possession behavior occurred at beats between seven and nine cycles per second. Polyrhythmic percussive techniques, such as the ones described for the Jacksonville ring shout by James Weldon Johnson, tend to heighten the intensity of the response.74 Death, Burial, and Funeral Rites Numerous ethnographic accounts underscore the assertion of Fortes and Dieterlen that in many traditional African systems, "death alone is not a sufficient condition for becoming an ancestor entitled to re ceive worship." A proper burial, they said, is "the sine qua non for becoming an ancestor deserving of veneration."75 While the precise number of African-born individuals who arrived illegally in Florida after 1821 is not known, we do know from specific descriptions of "salt water" Negroes who arrived in antebellum Florida that they were not hit with cultural amnesia the moment they stepped off the slavers. Accounts of the arrival of cargoes of Africans confiscated in midpassage on the seas and of their behavior upon landing in the United States clearly establish the carrying over of such cultural items as burial ceremonies. In May i860, for example, the illegal slavers Wildfire and Williams were captured on the seas by two U.S. gunboats, the Mohawk and the Wyandotte, and taken to the port of Key West. Shortly after the arrival of the three hundred Africans aboard these two ships, one of the children died. Jefferson B. Browne described the burial ceremony: The interment took place some distance from the barracoon, and the Africans were allowed to be present at the services, where they performed their native ceremony. Weird chants were sung, mingled with wails of grief and mournful moanings from a hundred throats, until the coffin was lowered into the grave, when at once the chanting stopped and perfect silence reigned, and the Africans marched back to the barracoons without a sound.76 Some slaves in the lower South made a semantic distinction be tween "burying" and "preaching the funeral." James Bolton, a former Robert L. Hall 61

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slave in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, said: "When folkses on our plantation died, Marster always let many of us as wanted to go lay off work 'til after the burying. Sometimes it were two or three months after the burying before the funeral sermon was preached."77 Among the African societies that traditionally practiced "second burial" was the Igbo: Greater complications arose when many children of many family heads became Christians, and were forbidden by the teaching of the missionaries to perform the second burial of their fathers. The Igbo practice was to bury an elderly person soon after death, with preliminary ceremonies. Then after a year or less, some times more, the second burial would take place with a lot more elaborate ceremonies than the first. It was believed that this sec ond burial was the one that helped the spirit of such departed elderly persons to rest comfortably with the ancestors in the land of ancestral bliss, from where they plead effectively with the gods for the well-being of their children on earth.78 In the traditional Igbo setting, the matter of the inheritance of the father's property could not be properly settled until after the second burial. Being slaves, the community was not likely to have found this consideration significant. One real-world element that reinforced the practice of second burial in its traditional Old World cultural setting was thus stripped away from the Igbos who were imported into the American colonies. A second consideration in the traditional con text was the belief that without a proper second burial, the extended family would be harassed and victimized by the hovering restless spirit of the dead person. This notion probably lost little weight in the transition from Africa to North America, and there is consider able evidence among late antebellum slaves, as recounted in WPA narratives and published narratives and autobiographies, that belief in roaming, restless spirits was still something to contend with long after the majority of the slaves were American-born.79 The distinction between burial and "second burial" or "preaching the funeral," a concept in many African societies from which slaves were extracted, is important to an understanding of how Africans adapted to the restrictions on funeral attendance in the Old South. The deceased might be buried at night during the work week (so 62 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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as not to disrupt farm work), leaving days or even weeks or months to pass before the public funeral was performed. The funeral ritual, then, as distinguished from the physical act of burying the body, is a public phenomenon. Funeral rites in traditional African societies were often occasions for celebration, creating an intensely renewed sense of family and communal unit among the survivors. It was per haps an analogous sense of celebration that, during the Reconstruc tion era, gave Ambrose B. Hart the mistaken impression that services among blacks were held more for recreation than for religion. Among the events reinforcing Hart's impression was an incident that bears a striking resemblance to the Igbo "second burial." Hart observed a group of Florida freed slaves gather to "repreach a funeral service for a child that had been 'buried prayed for and preached over two months ago.'"80 It is conceivable that immediate interment of the corpse was necessitated by the limitations of embalming techniques at the time. Both blacks and whites in the antebellum period buried rather soon after death. If burial waited until the nearest Sunday, it would not preempt a scheduled day of work, and the maximum number of people in the neighborhood would be able to attend. But after slavery the patterns began to diverge between blacks and whites to the point where one Leon County resident in the 1970s perceived that "white people don't have no respect for their dead . they bury them so quick." With the advent of improved methods of embalm ing, the physical necessity of nearly immediate burial declined, but the possibility of delay was perhaps even the preference, among rural blacks. It is not unusual for more traditionally oriented and ruralbased families to delay "preaching the funeral" for weeks, even now. Richard Wright recognized in the 1930s that there was "a culture of the Negro which has been addressed to him and to him alone, a culture which has, for good or ill, helped to clarify his consciousness and create emotional attitudes which are conducive to action. This culture stemmed mainly from two sources: (1) the Negro church; and (2) the fluid folklore of the Negro people." According to Wright: It was through the portals of the church that the American Negro first entered the shrine of Western culture. Living under slave conditions of life, bereft of his African heritage, the Negro found that his struggle for religion on the plantation between Robert L. Hall 63

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1820-60 was nothing short of a struggle for human rights. It re mained a relatively progressive struggle until religion began to ameliorate and assuage suffering and denial. Even today there are millions of Negroes whose only sense of a whole universe, whose only relation to society and man, and whose only guide to personal dignity comes through the archaic morphology of Christian salvation.81 By focusing on blacks living within the confines of present-day Florida, this essay has depicted the entrance of African Americans "through the portals of the church" into what Wright called "the shrine of Western culture." By this entry, they not only transformed themselves into African Americans without totally losing their Afri can past but also helped transform and enrich Western culture itself. Notes i. David E. Stannard, "Time and the Millennium: On the Religious Ex perience of the American Slave," in Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies, ed. Jack Salzman (New York: Burt Franklin, 1976), 2: 349. 2. William R. Bascom, "Acculturation among the Gullah Negroes," American Anthropologist 43 (1941): 43-50; reprinted in The Making of Black America, ed. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 1: 34-41. 3. Anthropologists and folklorists often call this blending process syncretism. Two folklorists defined the term: "The merging of two or more concepts, beliefs, rituals, etc. so that apparent conflicts are rationalized away. Old beliefs and associated actions are not necessarily replaced or destroyed by new ones; they are, rather, reinterpreted and absorbed. Syncretism may be seen in elements of early pagan rites modified to survive in later Christian rituals. Symbolism in Christmas (trees, etc.) and Easter (egg, etc.) celebra tions are examples." Kenneth Clarke and Mary Clarke, A Concise Dictionary of Folklore, Kentucky Folklore Series no. 1 (June 1965), 32. 4. George R Rawick, From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1972), 14-29. 5. Robert Farris Thompson, "Black Ideographic Writing: Calabar to Cuba," Yale Alumni Magazine, November 1978, 29. Also see Thompson's "Kongo Influences on African American Artistic Culture," in Africanisms in American Culture, ed. Joseph E. Holloway (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 148-84. 6. Bennetta Jules-Rosette, "Creative Spirituality from Africa to America: 64 African Religious Retentions in Florida

87. Several African-born slaves who ran away between 1820 and 1850 had tribal marks or scars. Maria, "African by birth . face tattooed," ran away from her owner, Henry De Grandpre, in 1829, Pensacola Gazette, December 16, 1829. In 1842 Abraham, who had "worked in the employ of a corporation in the city of Tallahassee for two years," ran away bearing a "mark over the eyes on the forehead, as Africans are frequently marked"; Florida Sentinel, October 14,1842. 53. Edith M. Dabbs, Face of an Island (Columbia, S.C.: R. L. Bryan, 1970), contains a photograph taken in 1909 of Alfred Graham, a former slave, who learned to weave baskets from his great-uncle, who brought the trade of basketry from Africa. Graham later taught George Brown, who became instructor of basketry at the Penn School on St. Helena Island. Joseph E. Holloway elicited this path of transmission in an unpublished interview with Leroy E. Brown, George's son. 54. Wood, Black Majority, 122. 55. James Dickerson, "Basket Weaving, Down-Home Style," Tallahassee Democrat, November 23, 1978. For further discussion of African-inspired material culture in the low country, see Robert E. Purdue, Jr., "African Baskets in South Carolina," Economic Botany 22 (1968): 289-92. 56. James Deetz, Invitation to Anthropology (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1967)* 45. 57. Some writers have suggested that much of the emotionalism of south ern evangelical religion derives from the contagious influence of blacks on revivalistic frontier religion. At least one prominent black scholar, how ever, argued that, instead, the emotionalism of the early evangelical faith of the whites influenced the nature of black religious worship. As Harry V. Richardson, "The Negro in American Religious Life," in The American Negro Reference Book, ed. John P. Davis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1966), 400, wrote: "But if the simplicity of the evangelical faith did much to determine the number of Negroes who became Christian, the emo tionalism of the early evangelical faith did much to determine the nature of Negro worship. The religion that the Negro masses first received was characterized by such phenomena as laughing, weeping, shouting, dancing, barking, jerking, prostration and speaking in tongues. These were regarded as evidence of the Spirit at work in the heart of man, and they were also taken as evidence of the depth and sincerity of the conversion. It was inevitable, therefore, that early Negro worship should be filled with these emotional elements. Although there is some tendency to regard high emotionalism as a phenomenon peculiar to the Negro church, in reality it is a hangover from the days of frontier religion." 58. Mrs. E. W Warner to E. P. Smith, September 3,1866, American Mis sionary Association Papers, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University. 68 African Religious Retentions in Florida

Ronald Killion and Charles Waller (Savannah, Ga.: Beehive Press, 1975), 58. 78. Edmond Ilogu, Christianity andIbo Culture (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974), 109. For another description of Igbo second burial, see Lorna McDaniel, "An Igbo Second Burial," Black Perspective in Music 6 (Spring 1978): 4955. McDaniel indicates that the ceremony might take place from one month to a year after death and might last several weeks. 79. Elliott J. Gorn, "Black Spirits: The Ghostlore of Afro-American Slaves," American Quarterly 36 (Fall 1984): 549-65. See, as an example, Florida Narratives, 196-97. 80. Letter from Ambrose B. Hart to father, June 15,1869; quoted in Joe M. Richardson, The Negro in the Reconstruction of Florida (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1965), 89. 81. Richard Wright, "Blueprint for Negro Literature," in Amistad 2, ed. John A. Williams and Charles F. Harris (New York: Vintage, 1971), 6. A shorter version of Wright's paper was published in the fall 1937 issue of New Challenge. 70 African Religious Retentions in Florida

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4 "Yellow Silk Ferret Tied Round Their Wrists" African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784 Daniel L. Schafer OVERNOR JAMES GRANT arrived in St. Augustine on August 29,1764, determined to transform Britain's new East Florida colony into a plantation province through the labor of African slaves. Earlier experiences in South Carolina had convinced Grant that plantations could only be developed in warm-climate colonies by black workers. White migrants from Europe could be utilized later, the governor reasoned, but only after the enormous burdens of initial development had been completed.1 Historian Bernard Bailyn has recently concluded that the inability of James Grant and his successors to recruit adequate numbers of white settlers was the major reason why British East Florida was an expensive and exotic two-decade failure. Bailyn believes a significant reason for the success of the northern British American colonies, which was not replicated in East Florida, was a labor system based on family farms. But there is little evidence that the governing estab lishment in Florida intended to follow that pattern, nor that they would have agreed with Bailyn that the dominant labor system that emerged, "plantations, large and small, worked by gangs of black slaves," was necessarily a sign of failure. Bailyn's contention that "this outcome had not been predicted and had not been expected" is at odds with both the plans and actions of James Grant, the prin cipal architect of East Florida's plantation society.2 Governor Grant's model was South Carolina, the only British

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mainland colony with a black majority. Historian Peter Wood has shown that during South Carolina's first three decades, 1670-1700, its laborers were primarily white migrants from Barbados engaged in small-scale agriculture and exports of corn, livestock, and lumber. After discovering that rice could be a profitable export crop, and that Africans were generally experienced rice farmers and cattle drovers and were less susceptible than white settlers to malaria and yellow fever, the Carolina planters turned increasingly to black slaves. By 1735 a Charles Town (later Charleston) resident expressed what had already become a common belief: [Rice] can't (in any great quan tity's) be produced by white people. Because the Work is too laborious, the heat very intent, and the Whites can't work in the wett at that Season of the year."3 Historian David Galenson's comparison of colonial servitude and slavery established that all the southern British American provinces depended on white indentures during the initial decades of devel opment, but that Africans predominated after a staple crop was established. The changeover in South Carolina came in the first de cades of the eighteenth century, when rice became the staple export crop. Servants that arrived in the colonies after staple crops pre vailed tended to be skilled tradesmen. When the expense of white skilled labor continued to climb, however, planters began training their slaves, especially those born in America.4 Decades before East Florida became a British colony, therefore, black slaves had become the laborers of choice in the rice and indigo fields of British America and had replaced whites as carpenters and coopers and in the other artisan trades. "By 1740," Charles Joyner has written, "two-thirds of South Carolina's settlers were Africans, nearly 40,000 people. On the Waccamaw [a coastal rice region] the proportions were even more lopsided."5 When James Grant arrived in South Carolina in 1760, he found a long-established, distinctive racial demography that prompted one man to say that the colony "looks more like a negro country than like a country settled by white people."6 Grant encountered a dramatically different settlement pattern in East Florida in 1764. St. Augustine was an empty town with a garri son force of fewer than two hundred men, and outside the town walls, the new governor found only "a State of Nature when I landed . 72 African Americans In British East Florida, 1763-1784

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not an acre of land planted in the Country and nobody to work or at work."7 The exchange of flags between Spain and Britain had precipitated the evacuation of approximately 3,000 St. Augustine residents in January 1764, leaving only three families as transition settlers. After touring the province in September 1764, Grant com plained that he had not found "ten acres of corn in the country," although "some straggling woodsmen already [were] upon [the St. Johns River]."8 It was vital that land be cleared and crops planted im mediately and that roads and other public improvements be attended to soon, and these tasks could only be accomplished if large num bers of workers moved into the province. But Grant was determined that workers would not be American frontiersmen, or "crackers," as he contemptuously referred to them. Grant turned immediately to South Carolina, recruiting among the leading planters for men who could fill government offices and, not coincidentally, also bring into the province large numbers of Carolina-born slaves. John Moultrie was lured with promises of the lieutenant governorship and grants of free land. Moultrie, a gradu ate in medicine from Edinburgh University in Scotland, had written his thesis on the South Carolina yellow fever epidemic of 1745, find ing that Africans were the least likely group to contract the disease. Calling Moultrie "a very well informed planter who makes the best Indigo in Carolina," the governor predicted that he would become an "oracle" in Florida, a man who would be consulted by other plant ers and who would recruit "some of [his] friends to come and live amongst us."9 The bonus would be Moultrie's 180 slaves, who were already familiar both with the slash-and-burn techniques necessary to clear virgin lands and with the cultivation of rice, indigo, and other provisions projected for Florida. Some of his friends had even larger slave forces. His brother James Moultrie and William Drayton, Duke Bell, and Francis Kinloch were among many Carolinians who established Florida plantations through the labors of their slaves. "only ... by the labor of slaves" Some of the first plantations attempted in East Florida by British absentee owners employed white indentures, but the results were so unsuccessful that James Grant warned others against using them. Even German immigrants, so prized in the northern colonies, "won't Daniel L. Schafer 73

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do here" Grant told one absentee in 1766. He conceded that they were "industrious" when self-employed, but he warned that when contracted to work for others, they routinely absconded: "Upon their landing they are immediately seized with the pride which every man is possessed of who wears a white face in America and they say they won't be slaves and so they make their escape."10 Grant elaborated on this theme in the many letters he sent to the absentee landowners. He alerted Thomas Thoroton that transport ing white workers to Florida would be costly: daily wages of at least four shillings per day for common laborers and six for tradesmen were customary. Even at these wages. Grant observed, Germans in Florida were likely to conclude that "it is below the dignity of a White Man to be a slave to anybody, and that Negroes are the proper people to do the work." n He told the Earl of Cassillis, "No produce will answer the expense of white labor"; artisans sent from estates in Scotland, especially those accustomed to living in towns, became in Florida "generally drunk and idle."12 Grant's letters also contained encouraging news: Although white workers were prohibitively expensive, there was a moderately priced alternative in Carolina-born slaves, common field hands who could be purchased for between 0 and 0 sterling each and provided with food, clothing, and tools at an annual cost seldom as high as thirty shillings each. At these prices, and given that black slaves gen erally increased in number and value, it seemed only logical to the governor that "work in this new world and indeed in every warm cli mate must be carried on by Negroes."13 In June 1768 Grant visited an estate being prepared for John Perceval, the second Earl of Egmont, at Mount Royal on the St. Johns River and witnessed the work of white craftsmen sent from Egmont's estates in Britain. They appeared to be skilled and willing to work. Grant thought, but they tired so quickly in the heat that the gover nor concluded: "Settlements in this warm climate must be formed by Negroes. Our indented white people can hardly be prevailed upon to work for their own subsistence" much less for the well-being of a master. Only after plantations were established and profitable could white laborers and small planters be introduced, "but such a plan my Lord is not to be thought of till this new world has in some means 74 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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been created . [and] this country can only be brought to that rich and plentiful state by the labor of slaves."14 Grant urged Egmont to discharge his expensive white tradesmen and replace them with skilled slaves trained in South Carolina. "Country born" or "new Negroes"? Grant advised the absentee owners to start plantations with "coun try born" Negroes available in South Carolina who were familiar with the planting practices and the language of their owners. "Sea soned" Africansresidents of South Carolina for several years and familiar with the crops and the languagecould also be included among the slaves designated to start a new plantation. After these experienced workers had cleared the land, planted provisions, and constructed shelters, "new Negroes" direct from the coast of Africa could be merged into the labor force, at savings of one-third or more in purchase costs. Grant brought ten domestic servants to St. Augustine, including Francois, a butler; Baptiste, a cook; Ragout, an assistant cook; and Alexander, a baker.15 Over the following years he and his agent pur chased many more slaves. In 1764 Grant bought eight slaves from Henry Laurens to start a 350-acre farm immediately adjacent to the northern boundary of the town. The five men and three women, pur chased at an average price of were "country born."16 Included were Will and his son Charles, who had been the property of William Simpson. In 1767 Simpson wrote from South Carolina asking the governor to purchase Will's wife and four other children: "The fel low writes his wife frequently ... in great distress for want of her; he disobliged me, otherwise I would not have parted with him; but he is now sufficiently punished. ... A separating of those unhappy people is adding distress to their unfortunate condition."17 It is not possible to tell from the records if the family was reunited, but Will stayed with Grant for two decades. He was occasionally hired out to other planters as a plowman, and he became manager of all planting activities at one of Grant's estates. Grant continued to purchase country-born slaves when he found bargains at probate and other sales and when he was in need of laborers with special skills. Among the "seasoned" Africans he Daniel L. Schafer 75

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bought were Jimmy Lowe, Harford, and Adam, who were described by Henry Laurens as "used to water works" and "good hands. The first two speak and understand English pretty well."18 The three men were put to work on the provincial schooner. "New Negroes" were sent to the farm in April 1765 when Laurens shipped five "Angola boys" for 0 each, considerably less expen sive than the Carolina-born men and women they joined. Apparently men in their late teens, they became field laborers under the tutelage of Will and the established crew. Within six months, one of these Africans was added to Grant's staff of domestics.19 Dick must have learned the craft quickly, since he was sold as a cook in 1769 for Robin, another "Angola boy," also joined Grant's domestic staff as a worker in "marsh grasses," probably a basket maker.20 In 1768 Grant opened an indigo plantation a few miles north of St. Augustine. Intended to "put a spur" to absentee grantees to speed up development, "Grant's Villa" became a training school for the prov ince's inexperienced overseers. "New Negroes" made up 66 percent of the fifty-one laborers who initiated the villa.21 Grant boasted that his first indigo crop brought a modest profit, and that he expected his second crop to "clear a good 15 percent for all the money I have laid out. ... All my expense was upon Negroes who are walking about, no white face belonging to the plantation but an overseer."22 He told Lord Egmont: "My Negroes, about 40 working hands, live in Palmetto huts for the time in the course of winter without putting me to any expense but the first cost of the boards and a few nails. The Negroes after doing their tasks will find scantling and shingles or clapboards and will build their houses themselves without any as sistance."23 "Ebo's... don't go off well" Sales of slaves to East Florida were arranged primarily by two colo nial merchants, Henry Laurens of Charles Town and John Graham of Savannah. Little has been written about Graham, who shipped hundreds of slaves to Florida, including Africans he purchased in Savannah and Charles Town from African traders, "refuse" Afri cans bought in the West Indies and sent to Savannah, and seasoned and country-born Negroes from plantation sales and probate sales in 76 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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Georgia, South Carolina, and Antigua and other West Indies locations. In the latter category were field laborers, sawyers, artisans, domestics, and even black drivers and plantation managers. In January 1766 Graham warned Grant to be wary of the Africans being sold in St. Augustine by a Mr. Rogers, whose low price () disguised his "lack of orthodox principles."24 Grant ignored the ad vice and purchased from Rogers "an able fellow and a very hand some wench," but he also placed an order with Graham for "a few men boys for my farm. I should like them well lookt." 25 Graham was selective when purchasing Africans, looking at their health, age, and appearance. When a shipment of ninety-six Africans sold for only 6 on average, Graham refused to buy "such wretches as I never saw before."26 He also rejected a shipment of healthy and attractive Africans, "nearly all boys and girls, only 27 grown men in all," but too expensive at 8 each.27 In December of 1767, Grant placed an order with Graham for 100 to 115 Africans, to be delivered "the sooner the better for they are much wanted."28 He said he would trust the merchant to set a fair price, but "since it is our first purchase [Grant was ordering on be half of seven other planters] you will bring that as low as you can." The only other condition of sale set by the sociable governor was that "the business must be finally concluded in my house over a bottle of Madeira." Three days later Graham sent thirty-five slaves he had purchased from merchants "in the islands." He also sent a "young lad in sailor's jacket, eight months on vessel, speaks good deal English and clever. You may want him on the Province schooner, ... if he fails a tryal, put him in the field."29 Grant named the young sailor Adam and placed him in charge of the boats at his indigo plantation.30 Two vessels arrived in Savannah in July of 1768 with cargoes of slaves from the Windward Coast of West Africa. Nearly ninety were sent to East Florida, including six males for Governor Grant at a price of 3 each. Graham said, "I think I never saw finer people."31 One month later the merchant shipped thirty-five men from the Gold Coast for Lord Egmont and six for James Moncrief .32 Late in January of 1769, Graham sent Grant four "black ladies . [including] two very strong and able wenches, and will do as much work as any man, and are also young . [and] a very likely, young Daniel L. Schafer

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smart girl goes by her country name Sulundie. Your Tom speaks her language."33 Look for the ship, Graham told Grant, and for "your four wenches ... [marked] with yellow silk ferret [ribbon] tied round their wrists." He also advised Grant that few African ships were ar riving at that time of the year. There had been some imports from the West Indies, but they had been mainly "Ebo's, who don't go off well."34 Charles Town would probably draw the first of the shipments in spring and summer, when prices would be 0 for adult men and 9 for women. Graham predicted prices would fall to about 7 for "choice" men in August and October, when "the fiery edge of the Carolina planters will be off and in general all of them pretty well supplied." Graham described the "fiery edge" after returning from a Charles Town sale of Africans from the Grain Coast and Windward Coast. With great difficulty, and even with the assistance of seven men, Graham had been able to claim only fifty-three Africans (including five men for James Grant and eighteen for a new St. Johns River plantation). The problem at the sale had been that "people were pulling, hawling and pushing one another down as if they had been to gott for nothing."35 "exceeding good Carpenter and Boatbuilder" The enterprising merchant also searched the countryside for country-born slaves with the special skills Florida buyers requested. He sent two "excellent Sawyers and Squarers, absolutely a bargain" at 4 each, to a Halifax River planter in March of 1769.36 When a Georgia man sold five hundred head of cattle to a Florida planter in 1767, Graham arranged the sale of his slave drover for He described the man as a "Cowpen Keeper Negro" who was "bred up from his infance in this business . [and] is remarkably clever and can manage any stock."37 Several families of skilled slaves were sent to Florida in 1768 from the plantation of Jonathan Bryan, a prominent planter in Georgia who had fallen on hard times. Four of the men were skilled sawyers who had each earned Bryan 8 a year in rental income; they sold for 1 each. All the men were "good on rice and every kind of plantation work and are capable of the management of a plantation themselves."38 Graham thought the best bargain was a "a remark-78 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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able choice family" of husband and wife and two "fine grown boys and a girl." He described the man as an "exceeding good Carpen ter and Boatbuilder, also a good planter, having for two years past managed Mr. Bryan's plantation himself without any overseer, and is perhaps one of the most valuable Negroes in the two provinces." Graham said he did not want "to buy the family but I could not get him [the husband and father] without them. The wench likewise very valuable, is a good washer and ironer, has for years past cut out and made herself all the Negroe cloaks for Mr. Bryan's people and is otherwise a good House Wench." The entire family, including sons who worked as house servants, waited on their master, and cared for the horses, sold for 290The correspondence of Graham and Laurens provides evidence that skilled slaves, drivers, and plantation managers from Georgia and Carolina plantations were available to Florida planters. When a Florida planter placed a standing order in 1768 for a black driver capable of "managing Rice & Indigo," Laurens attended auctions until he found a satisfactory person. Laurens wrote in February of 1768 that he had "purchas'd at a Publick Sale a Negro of a good Character & who was said to have been a driver for the last five Years Constantly which I thought much In his favor but he has a Wife tack'd to him; however I believe you will think the Couple cheap at 0 [Carolina currency; approximately 1 sterling]."39 Laurens also supplied the laborers for Mount Oswald, a 20,000acre plantation on the Tomoka and Halifax rivers that was to be established for wealthy Scotsman Richard Oswald. Oswald was part owner of Bance Island, a slaving fortification in the Sierra Leone River, and he had previously shipped consignments of African slaves to Laurens in Charles Town.40 Grant advised Oswald that thirty Carolina-born slaves with at least one year's experience in indigo fields would be needed to start Mount Oswald. Work was to begin in 1765 during fall season and continue through the winter; shelters were to be built and land cleared and prepared for spring planting of provisions. Oswald's black pioneers would also be expected to clear ground for indigo planting and to build houses for thirty additional Carolina-born slaves who would arrive in the second year at the site. During the third year Oswald would send sixty "new" Africans, for a total of 120 laborers. The goal was to become self-sufficient in food-Daniel L. Schafer 79

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stuffs during the first year and to establish four separate plantations by the end of the third, devoted respectively to indigo, cotton, sugar, and rice.41 Grant selected and surveyed a promising 20,000-acre site on the Tomoka River while Henry Laurens assembled a labor force for Oswald's new estate.42 Laurens advertised in the South Caro lina Gazette for "two Negro Carpenters, two Coopers, three pair of Sawyers, forty Field Negroes, young men and women, some ac quainted with indigo making, and all with the ordinary course of Plantation work in this country."43 In 1765 Laurens shipped twentyfour men, seven women, and three children to work on Oswald's new plantation. Nine of the men were "new" Africans, billed at an aver age price of Of the seven women, four were described as capable of a variety of domestic skills, including Silvia, a "wench highly rec ommended as a quick and willing slave" for housework and garden ing; Lucy, the mother of two young children, who could "wash very well, iron and cook tolerably"; and Maggy, who could wash, iron, and cook, "but loves Rum." Mary, the least expensive at was a "stout, able new Negro, middle-aged, bought when low in flesh, would sell for 50 percent more now." Chloe was born in Carolina and bought "of a transient person" for about two-thirds of her value. The most costly was Jenny, "a young woman used to drudgery about house and garden," bought for .44 The last of the seven women, Nanny, is of particular interest. Gov ernor Grant transferred her to another planter because he judged her too valuable for plantation work. Laurens described Nanny as eigh teen or nineteen years old, able to wash and iron "exceeding well, is very orderly and can do any house work."45 She carried with her to St. Augustine a "pretty child named Minto in arms." Nanny and the child were billed at Laurens said about Grant: The Governor does not understand Plantation affairs so well as some of us Southern folks. I have not less than ten Negro Women upon 3 Plantations that would sell for more than Nanny but I do not think them too valuable. Such Negroes for their ability in making Negro Cloths, attending sick people, & a hun dred things which new or Ship's Negroes cannot perform are invaluable. Nanny is a breeding Woman & in ten Years time 80 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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may have double her worth in her own Children. Mrs. Laurens had a great covetousness for her [as a house servant] when I first bought her but knowing her value I would not convert the prop erty. I shall take the Liberty to hint this to His Excellency.46 "be discreet & carry a steady command" The twenty-four male slaves Laurens bought for Oswald were pri marily field hands, but several had additional skills like sawing, at tending horses, butchering, and driving carts. Caesar was a "very stout well made young man, orderly, country born, about 19," a cooper who had served four years as an apprentice. Caesar was evalu ated at Harry, with five years' experience as a carpenter, was the most costly, at Laurens found it difficult to fill Grant's order for the second round of laborers for Oswald. With Carolina-born slaves hard to find, he advised that Grant accept "fine young Gambians or Gold Coast [im ports] They are fit to work immediately and the next year will be as good hands as any and less inclined to wander."47 In November he sent, as replacement for Nanny, a "truly promising New Negro" named Liberty.48 The workers Laurens selected were healthy and well behaved, "fine specimens" according to Grant. Since they arrived too early in the year to begin the Mount Oswald settlement, Grant put them to work at his own farm near St. Augustine, clearing brush, planting corn, and digging a ditch around the entire three hundred acres.49 Despite Oswald's fears of high mortality rates in the Tomoka area, and his concerns that Carolina-born slaves were then relatively ex pensive, Grant was able to persuade him to accelerate development and to augment the workforce with "new" Africans. He also ap proved the purchase of thirty additional Carolina-born workers, and began speculating on acquiring from Antigua or St. Christopher a "few old Negroes who know how to raise and clean cotton."50 The arrival of Oswald's new overseer, identified only as Mr. Hewie, was delayed until mid-1766, prompting Grant to postpone sending the "Negroes alone into the Wilderness." When Hewie arrived from South Carolina in June, the governor "immediately" ordered him to Tomoka with twelve male slaves. The women and younger slaves stayed behind at Grant's farm.51 Daniel L. Schafer 81

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Henry Laurens had sent Hewie to Florida after receiving strong recommendations of his managerial abilities. Yet Laurens remained concerned about the isolated location of Mount Oswald, fearing that if provoked by "the arbitrary power of an Overseer," the slaves might become "tempted to knock him in the head & file off in a Body."52 His fears were heightened by reports of Hewie's quarrels with the governor and his difficulties in controlling the slaves. The governor objected to Hewie's episodes of drunkenness, his excessive and abusive labor demands, and his unreasonably severe punishments, which led some slaves to run away. Still, Grant could report at the end of August that work was progressing as expected and that none of the laborers had died.53 Before the year ended, however, the slaves rebelled and drowned Hewie. Laurens was moved to lament: The catastrophe of the wretched [Hewie] & the poor Negroes is affecting. He might have been, according to his credentials a good Servant, but I see clearly that he was unfit for the sole management of a Plantation. His successor the Indian Johnson must behave above the rank of common Carolinian Fugitives, to save his Scalp a whole year. He must be discreet & carry a steady command otherwise the Blacks will drown him too, for of all Overseers they love those of their own colour least.54 There is no surviving record of Oswald's reaction to the death of his overseer, beyond his decision to send additional whites to Mount Oswald for security.55 The success of "Indian Johnson," the overseer who replaced Hewie, may also have convinced Oswald to accelerate the pace of development. Laurens implied that Johnson was a black man, or of mixed Indian and African ancestry; others have con cluded from Laurens's remarks about Johnson that he was Indian. But whether African American or African Indian, Johnson was one of several nonwhite managers that capably discharged their duties in East Florida.56 "sending such a number of Africans" Oswald planned to use John Graham, of Savannah, to broker a regu lar slave trade from Bance Island and reduce the cost of slaves for his 82 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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Florida plantation. He also anticipated occasional trips to "Barba dos to buy Refuse Slaves at half the money, which with a little care would be as good as any we could get on ye coast."57 In 1767 Oswald notified Grant that Captain Richard Savery was sailing for Bance Island to secure approximately one hundred Africans for Mount Oswald and would anchor the St. Augustine Packet off St. Augustine in September. Worried that "it might be of bad consequence if the men slaves now on the Plantation remained longer unprovided with wives/' Oswald had "ordered 30 young women to be shipped and 30 more lads and large girls of such as they may be fit for field labor in about two years." He also directed his agents in Africa "to send a few full grown men, not exceeding ten in number, . [who were] used to the Trades of their country believing they will become soon useful and handy in a new plantation."58 Savery delivered seventy Africans for Mount Oswald, but only twenty were old enough to be considered working hands. The other fifty were excellent-quality boys and girls not yet mature enough for field work, but Oswald predicted that if raised at Tomoka they would eventually be "worth two imported at full age." With approximately 120 men, women, and children to feed, however, Oswald worried that stores of provisions might be inadequate. He advised Grant to con sider selling the "smallest [children] for good bills or cash," but if the food supply was satisfactory, he wanted the governor to "sell none."59 Oswald soon organized a trade involving the Florida plantations, the Caribbean, Africa, and Britain.60 His vessel, the Charlotte Cape, sailed from St. Augustine to St. Croix to pick up rum for sale in Africa before "returning to St. Christophers with about 100 Negroes." Oswald promised that if a satisfactory trade plan could be "settled among the Florida gentlemen" the Charlotte would "be at their ser vice in any shape they please."61 Despite the threat of late season storms Captain Savery brought another "cargo of very fine Slaves ... from the coast of Africa" to St. Augustine in December.62 The entire cargo was sold by early Janu ary at prices lower than Savannah merchants were then charging. Between 1767 and 1770 Oswald delivered at least four shipments of Africans to St. Augustine, providing much-needed laborers for the East Florida plantations.63 Let other grantees grumble about "money Daniel L. Schafer

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laid out and nothing returned but accounts of inundations, cater pillars, etc.," Oswald wrote to Grant. "I hope you will allow I have done my part for getting things forward by sending such a number of Africans, with whom I hope everybody is pleased."64 Oswald's ships continued to carry slaves to East Florida in 1771 and 1772, probably the peak years for the trade. Thomas Taylor believes that in 1771 at least a thousand slaves were imported.65 In July 1772 David Yeats rejoiced that "Mr. Oswald's vessel ... is expected next month from the Coast of Guinea, tis to be hoped she will dispose of her cargoe here as Negroes are much wanted at the present."66 Three planters had orders for ninety Africans, but Yeats hoped there would be at least 120 aboard. The number of slaves at Mount Oswald grew from more than 100 in 1767 to 240 in 1780.67 Most of the thirty workers who initiated the plantation had been country-born in South Carolina; the remainder were shipped from Oswald's trading establishment at Bance Island. In 1774 Laurens announced that Oswald planned to send to East Florida "about one hundred of the Grametas or Island Slaves" em ployed at Bance Island. Oswald had promised "not to expose them to public Sale in the manner of African Cargoes, but if possible & with their liking & good behaviour to keep them together to work on his plantation." Fearing "the Neighbouring King & his people would immediately Seize & Sell them to the next Trading Vessel" if discharged from their duties in Africa, Oswald decided to send the "Island Slaves" to East Florida. Laurens stated: "Mr. Oswald is de sirous of keeping them all together or in plantations near each other, & objects to hiring any of them out."68 By 1776 there were fifteen other major plantations in the general vicinity of Oswald's estate, in what came to be called the Mosquito District. It can be assumed that a significant percentage of the Afri cans in the district were transported by Oswald's ships, but there was also an East Florida-based slaving firm that began business as early as 1767. In November 1767 Laurens wrote two letters of credit for Penman and Co. for ,000 each to the leading African merchants in St. Christopher and Barbados. Laurens commented on January 15, 1768, that the firm had sold ninety "new" Africans in East Florida the previous November and December. James Penman became a rice 84 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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planter on the St. Johns River and a leading merchant in St. Augustine; his partners in the slaving firm, William Mackdougall and Robert Bissett also became prominent planters. Few records survive to document their involvement in the slave trade to East Florida.69 James Grant returned to London in 1771 for treatment of a painful gout condition, leaving behind a thriving core of East Florida plan tations. The new governor, Colonel Patrick Tonyn, who arrived in 1774, found estate owners still eager to buy Africans. Even in 1776, after the American Revolution had begun and Georgia rebels and privateers had destroyed plantations, disrupted indigo exports, and raided for slaves, Tonyn could report that optimistic planters were "purchasing new Negroes." Moreover, shipments to the West Indies of naval stores and lumber for shipbuilding led to a new boom and expansion in the province that lasted until the British evacuation in 1784.70 "as happy as the nature of their servitude will admit" British Florida's slave population was quite diverse. Carolinaand Georgia-born blacks were in the majority in the 1760s, but Africans took the lead in the 1770s. Specific ethnic origins are seldom identifiable, but it is safe to generalize that most "new" Africans came from homelands in interior Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, with additional numbers from Nigeria and Angola.71 Their labor proved to be as diverse as their origins. Slaves en gaged in indigo, rice, and provisions production, and later in lumber ing, naval stores, and turpentine extraction. They were also domestics, drovers, sailors, hunters, basket makers, carpenters, coopers, wheelwrights, sawyers, indigo makers, dairymaids, weavers, washer women, drivers, and plantation managers. Some worked for wages in town and on plantations.72 As slaves created indigo, rice, cotton, and sugar plantations from virgin soils in wilderness woodlands and swamps, they constructed their own shelters, at minimal cost to their owners. Moreover, unless drought intervened, the produce of their provisions fields typically exceeded household demands, and the surplus was sold in St. Augustine. John Moultrie's slaves harvested two crops from his rice fields at Tomoka River in 1775, with "the second cutting . very little in-Daniel L. Schafer 85

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Slave labor on a rice plantation. This illustration from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper> October 20, 1806, shows the variety of skills required to grow rice. Richard Oswald's African-born slaves performed the grueling labor of establishing new rice plantations at several northeast Florida locations. ferior to the first." They also constructed his "handsome stone house at Bella Vista" on the Matanzas River. Moultrie planned to retire there, thinking the house "will last forever, a good country house with ten rooms, plows & carts going in the fields . ., more rice than I can beat out.. fine stock of cattle & hogs & plenty of. . fish, but ter & cream, cheese, everything." Everything that Moultrie thought he would need in life was entirely the result of the hard work and re markable productivity of his black slaves.73 What cannot be defined with certainty are the specific conditions of life and labor imposed by Moultrie and the other Florida planters. The daily lives of East Florida slaves are seldom mentioned in the primary sources, beyond obscure hints and references filtered through the perceptions of white male slaveowners. There are rare comments like one overseer's description of bondsmen "obliged to be upon foot night and day in order to save as much of the indigo 86 African Americans In British East Florida, 1763-1784

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The main house at the Kingsley Plantation, Fort George Island. Zephaniah Kingsley settled in East Florida in 1803. He moved to this home in 1814 with his African-born wife, Anna Madgigine Jai. From here they supervised Kingsley's numerous plantations. Courtesy of the Florida State Archives. from the worms as possible," but the implication elsewhere in the letter is that this was atypical.74 In general, there are insufficient data to generalize on hours of labor, daily food rations, incidence of illness, medical care, and treatment of slaves by their owners. Information on rebellions or other types of large-scale disorders is almost nonexistent in the records, which, given the paucity of whites in the plantation regions, is puzzling. With only a single white man supervising the slaves at James Grant's indigo plantation, why did the blacks not replicate the fate of poor Mr. Hewie at Mount Oswald. But such did not happen again at Oswald's estate, nor at Grant's Villa and the other plantations in the province. Oswald raised the number of white overseers as a deterrent to uprisings, but other planters used slaves as drivers to direct field work and even to man age all plantation activities. Perhaps the skills of these black drivers as mediators and leaders explains the minimal incidence of recorded violence. Another factor worth consideration is the practice of set ting up plantations with Carolina-born slaves before adding "new" Daniel L. Schafer 87

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Africans to the workforces, which may have served as a social con trol mechanism while at the same time providing an acculturative transition for the newcomers. On the latter point, however, there are hints of conflicts among the slaves, perhaps prompted by interethnic jealousies and by some thing resembling class antagonisms. The poisoning of two of James Grant's slaves, for instance, may have been the work of "new" Afri cans brought to his indigo plantation. Grant's agent, Dr. David Yeats, informed him June 5,1780, of a most shocking affair that has lately happened at your planta tion. Leander, one of your best Negroes, and Jack his brother, old Carolina's sons, have been poisoned and are both dead. They died suddenly within two days of one another in great agony and all the symptoms of poison. What makes this matter still worse, three of your own Negroes have been accused of it. Two fellows and a wench and one of the fellows (Walley), has since shot himself. ... I should be happy to have this fellow punished as he deserves for so atrocious a deed and to deter others from the like, if we can fix it upon him, but [it is] a difficult matter to come at the truth where none but Negroes are concerned.75 Leander and his brother and mother had been in Grant's em ploy since 1765. During that time the workforce had changed from majority-born in Carolina to majority-born in Africa. Leander, the plantation carpenter, and the other Carolina-born men had become the elite of the slave quarters; they were the skilled tradesmen, plow men, drivers, and managers. It is possible their lengthy tenure also gave them the privilege of spouses, which could have sparked further envy and resentment.76 The planters believed that balancing sex ratios was an effective way to control the behavior of their male slaves. In 1771, Yeats wrote to Grant: "The plantation negroes are all healthy and behave well ex cept Jack, who has got such a liking to this town that there is no keep ing him out of it unless he is constantly chained."77 Ten years later, with a larger workforce and a higher percentage of Africans, Yeats encountered this problem again, with added intensity. He urged Grant to purchase "young wenches for the plantation which suffers so much by having so few, for you not only lose by your Negroes not 88 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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Slave cabins built in the 1820s at the Kingsley Plantation. The two-room tabby structures with brick fireplaces were still inhabited by African American families at the time this photograph was taken (ca. 1870). Courtesy of the Florida State Archives. increasing, but frequently the labour of the young fellows, who are either absenting themselves after the wenches in Town, or inducing them to run away and concealing them in the woods in the neigh borhood of the plantation. I have frequent complaints on this head, and their guise is what must they do for wife?"78 Security had been Richard Oswald's reason for sending African women to his Tomoka plantation in 1767. Social control was also on John Tucker's mind when he decided to "make all my black servants as happy as the nature of their servitude will admit. I have added ten women more to the twenty mentioned [previously] to provide each of the men slaves with a wife as a means of keeping them at home and to do their work cheerfully."79 In 1769 the Earl of Egmont ordered young African women for his Daniel L. Schafer 89

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male laborers in Florida, hoping to render the Negroes I now have happy and contented, which I know they cannot be without having each a Wife. This will greatly tend to keep them at home and to make them Regular and tho the Women will not work all together so well as ye Men, Yet Amends will be sufficiently made in a very few years by the Great Encrease of Children who may easily [be trained] and become faithfully attached to the Glebe and to their Master.80 Some owners offered incentives to labor that may also have served as control mechanisms. One owner gave Sundays off, then paid for cutting wood, making indigo boxes, and other work performed on that day. Governor Grant paid wages to slaves who did extra work like carting and cutting stones for his garden wall and making seed baskets, as well as to "Dick the fisherman" and "Black Sandy the hunter."81 Others believed that the way they treated their slaves made a difference in how they behaved and worked. James Grant, for example, described the work routine at his estate as "very strict" and regular as "clockwork." Looking back on his slaves in 1784, he judged that "the Negroes . served me well and faithfully. ... I dare say there are no better slaves anywhere, they have always been well fed and cloathed."82 John Moultrie considered himself "a patron and protector as well as master to my Negroes" and pledged to make them "happy" as they aged "and wore out," as long as they "continued faithful, dili gent, industrious and well behaved, attentive to my wishes." Quamino has never behaved amiss, always sweet, has never had a blow and ... he never may, he will I think never deserve it. I desire to make him independent of the overseers. He must be allowed to go about among my people giving them good ad vice and seeing that they do not do amiss. He is an old planter and may be of service in directing the Negroes, but he must not be struck by any manager or overseer. He is trusty and so is old Frank, and may keep the keys of any stores, etc.83 There is, of course, a clear implication that some Moultrie slaves were believed by authorities to have behaved amiss and that whip pings were not unheard of. After hearing in 1783 that East Florida would be returned to Spain, 90 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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Moultrie became concerned about "a number of faithful servants brought up for several generations in our family," and he contem plated freeing them, burning his houses, and becoming "a real phi losopher." Instead, he sent them to the Bahamas, from where Quamino wrote in 1795, long after Moultrie had settled in England. "My Dear Master This will be delivered you by Doctor Bailey who was on your plantation since we left St. Augustine. I have had pretty good health but now am growing very old and weak and if you had not placed us in the care of such good men as Mr. Moss's are I don't know what would have became of us. When we are sick we are attended by a Doctor and everything we can in reason expect. I had the misfortune about three months ago to lose my wife Margaret which I feel a great deal at a loss for. We have long been looking for some of our young masters who you said should come and be amongst us but am sorry to hear of their only coming about half way, and I have now given up hopes of ever seeing you or any of your family. But please to give my kind love to my old mistress, Miss Sally, Bella and Martha, Master Tacky, George and Timmy, and I will wish God may bless you and give you your health. Brother Andrew also joins me in love too. I remain dear master, your ever faithful Servt, Quamino"84 "mismanagement and a capricious cruelty" While Moultrie was seen by his peers as a paternalistic slave manager concerned about the welfare of his bondsmen, there was at least one prominent East Florida official whom contemporaries condemned for cruelty to his black servants: the second governor of East Florida, Colonel Patrick Tonyn. Multiple informantsincluding Frederick George Mulcaster, sur veyor general of the province, a member of the Royal Engineers, and reputedly an illegitimate half-brother of King George III; the Rev erend John Forbes, Episcopal cleric; Dr. David Yeats, secretary of the province; and Alexander Skinner, an overseer and government agent to the Indiansall accused the governor and his wife of brutal Daniel L. Schafer 91

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treatment of Alexander, Peg, and Sue, three of Grant's slaves whom Tonyn had hired. Yeats informed Grant that the three were "greatly complaining about bad usage, which indeed is no fault of his but the WOMAN'S, who appears to be of a hard-headed disposition, at least to the servants."85 Reverend Forbes heard similar complaints and in vestigated. He told Grant: "They plead hard and the town says [they] have Iron Caps. . Alexander complains that Madam is the devil, he told me the governor was well enough, but since I saw him he has had the cap above mentioned and been flogged."86 Within two days, Forbes had investigated further and sent an urgent appeal: "Your Negroes, from the mismanagement and a capricious cruelty of a fine lady, are considered as being in a state of the most abject slavery. Alexander has got an iron cap with which he walks the streets."87 James Grant was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the time, having traded his place in Parliament for service in the British army. When he heard of the floggings and the cruel imposition of an iron mask clamped about the head of Alexandera punishment that caused great pain and prevented slaves from feeding themselves through its iron barshe reacted decisively. He scolded Dr. Yeats for permitting Tonyn to subject the "poor creatures" to a "degree of severity which they had never been accustomed to meet with in my house," and for acquiescing when Tonyn sent Sue to work as a field slave at his St. Johns River plantation. Bring Sue home immediately, Grant told Yeats, and added, "If Alexander and Peg are still in the woods [runaways], which I wish them to be, you are publickly to make it known that Governor Tonyn has nothing to do with them, that they have nothing to fear, and are to live in the future at Grant's Villa."88 He also notified his overseer, Alexander Skinner: "I will neither sell or hire Alexander, Peg and Sue to Governor Tonyn, and have directed him ... to send them to the Villa within twenty-four hours after he receives my letter . where they are to live in future in peace and quiet." He promised to disguise Skinner's involvement: "Tis a cross talk if the Governor sees it, but I care not a farthing about him."89 Four eyewitnesses, all important and credible people with more to lose than gain by reporting the incidents, sent the former gover nor corroborating accounts of Tonyn's cruel treatment. That Grant believed them, and denounced Governor Tonyn in public view, 92 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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prompts questions about the daily lives and treatment of the other slaves working at Tonyn's St. Johns River plantation. "in the woods some time" Florida slaves, like slaves elsewhere, ran away to escape mistreat ment, and some found refuge among the Indians.90 Grant wrote that four slave runaways crossed the St. Johns River and joined a band of Indian hunters, "who were very fond of them, and employed them as Servants, but immediately gave them up when they were ap plied for."91 Another Indian hunting party assisted a "stout Negro fellow of.. the Ebo country named Boatswain" to escape from James Penman's estate.92 Boatswain had been seen stealing corn and ran away to es cape punishment. Penman went looking for him, and for Peter, a runaway from another plantation who had been "in the woods some time." Penman was unable to find Peter, but he returned with Boat swain and three other runaways. Ten days later Penman scoured the wilderness five miles south of Mount Oswald until he found a run away who had "constantly lived without fire, or any nourishment but the Palmetto Berry" for several months.93 The continuing tendency of the Indians to shelter runaways prompted a bounty of for every escapee returned to British au thorities. When Indians turned in seven runaways in June 1771, Moul trie said: "It has been a practice for negroes to run away from their Masters and to get into the Indian towns, from whence it proved very difficult and troublesome to get them back."94 Although the Indi ans denied it, Moultrie insisted they often "sequestered or rescued" slaves who escaped to their villages. The return of seven escapees would hopefully send a strong message to Florida slaves that refuge among the Indians had ended and would "soon put a stop to run away Slaves flying into their towns." Moultrie gladly paid the 4 in bounties, and also compensated a Georgia man for returning eight other runaways captured near the boundary of Indian lands. Slaves absconding to the Florida Indians would be a familiar theme for decades, whether Britain, Spain, or the United States controlled the province.95 Daniel L. Schafer 93

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"the common frontier quite abandoned" The closing years of the province's brief history must have been trau matic for the black slaves of East Florida. Georgia privateers and border marauders frequently raided for cattle and slaves. Andrew Turnbull was so fearful of Georgia raids in 1776 that he made plans to "sneak" his slaves down the Indian River and into hiding spots in the woods. Turnbull's estate was indeed raided, on November 29, 1779; eighteen slaves were carried off by privateers, believed at the time to be Spaniards.96 London merchant John Wilkinson's planta tion west of the St. Johns River was destroyed in July 1777, and the raiders abducted more than thirty of his slaves. Next they proceeded to sack a neighboring estate and steal a slave family.97 The military threat from Georgia resulted in a degree of freedom for some East Florida black men. In 1776 Governor Patrick Tonyn created four black militia companies to join in defense of the province. The governor, anticipating rebelliousness, appointed "double or treble white officers" for each company. Even so, it seems im probable that armed black slaves could have been controlled so easily under frontier military conditions, or that they would have fought with enthusiasm unless freedom was the incentive. But fight they did, as members of the St. Johns Rangers, a mixed regiment of whites, Indians, and blacks who ranged widely within the province and par ticipated in attacks on enemy fortifications in Georgia. They also be came adept border marauders who brought thousands of cattle to St. Augustine. John Moultrie summarized these guerrilla raids in Octo ber 1776: "Georgia began to plunder us, we retaliated, the common frontier quite abandoned on both sides, horses and crops destroyed, people and cattle moved away."98 For other slaves the war meant only an exchange of overseers and a switch from field work to construction of fortifications. The Gen eral Assembly passed a labor draft law in 1781 requiring each planter to send one in ten of his slaves to work under the direction of mili tary engineers. Recompense for owners was one shilling per day, which Tonyn estimated at one-fourth or one-fifth the true value. Six months later, the General Assembly drafted one in every five slaves. Tonyn acknowledged that slaveowners were making major sacrifices through loss of labor at a time of great profitability in agriculture 94 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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and naval stores. He also commented on the "immense labor" de manded of drafted slaves." Some planters resorted to drafting measures of their own in futile efforts to protect their property. The exposed location of Jeremyn Wright's estate led him to arm fifty slaves. In 1771 Wright had pur chased a rice plantation established in the previous decade by South Carolina planter Andrew Way on a "tide river swamp, on St. Mary's River." 10 Wright accumulated more than 1,000 acres and eventually imported 170 black slaves. After constructing dwellings and barns, clearing and planting extensive fields of corn and peas, as well as a four-hundred-acre rice field, Wright found himself the target of rebel attacks. His company of armed slaves was used by provincial troops to help repel attacks on Amelia Island in August 1776, but the following July they were overwhelmed by vengeful Georgians, who abducted twenty slaves and destroyed the plantation. Survivors es caped into the woods and made their way to St. Augustine.101 "till this new world has in some means been created" Visitors to the Amelia Island plantation of Lord Egmont in 1773 and 1774 recorded large fields of potatoes, 140 acres of corn and peas, over 200 acres of indigo, and a herd of "fat and well" cattle pas tured on the island. The estate was self-sufficient in foodstuffs and sent 1,000 bushels of corn to market in 1773. Wandering naturalist William Bartram, whose own plantation at Picolata on the St. Johns River had failed, also admired the excellent indigo fields and the "cotton, corn, batatas, and almost every esculent vegetable" that he saw at the Amelia Island plantation.102 To defend the Egmont estate from attack, plantation manager Stephen Egan armed twelve slave men to join provincial troops patrolling the St. Marys River, but in 1777 raiders destroyed the estate, sending the Egan family and more than one hundred slaves in flight to an undeveloped tract east of the St. Johns River, two miles south of the cow ford (today's Jacksonville). For the third time in a decade the Egmont slaves would begin carving a new plantation from the East Florida wilderness. Starting in 1768 as a force of thirtyfive Africans from the Gold Coast, they had built shelters, cleared land, and planted corn, rice, and indigo at Mount Royal on the St. Johns River. They later established the 10,000-acre tract at the north Daniel L. Schafer 95

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end of Amelia Island, abandoned after the 1777 raids. At the third site, named Cecilton, the well-seasoned laborers began anew the ex hausting and dangerous burdens of creating a Florida plantation. As productive and versatile as before, they drew from the forests a bountiful harvest of timber, tar, pitch, and turpentine.103 Prior to the British evacuation, Governor Tonyn inventoried Cecilton plantation. Living at the estate were Egan and his wife and three sons, along with twenty-two of Egan's slaves and seventy-eight slaves belonging to the Egmonts. Three men had died at Cecilton: Peter of old age, Nero of "dropsy," and Robin of drowning. Juba, Joe, Nestor, Hannibal, and Pan had escaped to the Indians, and others had been abducted by the Georgia rebels, but there were still fourteen slave families, totaling fifty-nine men, women and children, and nineteen single males working under Egan's supervision. The women's occu pations included field slave, washer, needleworker, cotton spinner, and midwife. The men were described as sawyers, squarers, makers of turpentine and pitch and tar and adept at all lumber and naval stores, carpenters, coopers, drivers, and cattle-keepers. Charles was listed as: "sawyer, squarer, hunter, field slave, understands manage ment of horses and cattle." After the Treaty of Paris returned East Florida to Spain in 1783, the Egmont slaves were evacuated in 1785 to start new lives yet again at coffee plantations in Dominica. "realising something out of the wreck" Evacuation forced John Moultrie to make some disposition of his slaves, and the choices he faced were troubling. "I cannot think," Moultrie wrote, "of selling a number of faithful servants brought up for several generations in our family. ... I sometimes think I had better turn a real philosopher; burn my house, give freedom to my Negroes and get rid of all encumbrances which I find property really to be at this period." Moultrie may have become a philosopher after settling in Shropshire, England, at an estate inherited by his wife, but he did not emancipate his slaves. Instead, he sent them to cotton fields in the Bahama Islands. One absentee planter feared he would suffer great losses during the evacuation. Henry Strachey realized that his 10,000-acre estate would not sell during a time of mass exodus, but slaves represented his most valuable property, and since they could be moved to mar-96 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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kets where prices might be better, he instructed Governor Tonyn: "My object is to get rid of them at the most advantage consistent with Humanity; If Georgia or Carolina would take them and pay for them on delivery, I hold that to be the most advisable modeif not you must do the best you can, but, in all Events secure the payment that I may be sure of realising something out of the wreck."104 "safe in harbour" There would be many "wrecks" during these turbulent and traumatic times, none more dramatic than the experiences of the inhabitants of Mount Oswald. Prompted by the violence and economic uncer tainty of the American Revolution, Oswald transferred 240 slaves and other movable property to Savannah in 1781. En route, privateers attacked the transport and abducted seventy slaves. Those not taken stayed only briefly in Georgia before being sent back to Oswald's Tomoka River estate in July 1782. Within two years the slaves were evacuated to Charles Town, where Henry Laurens witnessed their arrival and informed Oswald: "The poor Negroes are safe in har bour." 105Destined to work rice fields at Santee River, South Caro lina, 170 survivors of a tragic intercontinental migratory odyssey, a mixture of country-born and "new Negroes" who had carved an im portant plantation from the New World wilderness of British East Florida, were temporarily "safe in harbour." James Grant's slaves went briefly to the Bahamas and were later sold to a consortium of Santee River rice plantersat prices almost double their cost to Grant in the 1760s. For Robin, a driver, Cain, a jobbing carpenter, and George, an indigo maker, the journey to Santee River would pass through Charles Town Harbor, their sec ond arrival in these waters. The first time, they had been victims of the African slave trade, "new Negroes" about to be purchased and reshipped to St. Augustine. The second time they were veterans of nearly two decades of plantation development in East Florida. Not until eight decades later would their descendants be emancipated under the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, free to start their own estates. Daniel L. Schafer 97

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Notes 1. For Grant's life prior to 1764, see Alastair Macpherson Grant, Gen eral James Grant of Ballindalloch, 1720-1806 (London: privately published by A. M. Grant, 1930). 2. Bernard Bailyn, "Failure in Xanadu," chapter 12 of Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986). 3. Samuel Eveleigh, quoted in Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina, from 16jo through the Stono Rebellion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 84. 4. Planters in Barbados relied on white indentures until sugar was intro duced in the 1640s, and whites worked tobacco fields in the Chesapeake until the 1680s; Africans predominated in the fields thereafter. David W. Galenson, White Servitude in Colonial America: An Economic Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 153-68,177-78; Markets in History: Economic Studies of the Past (Cambridge, 1989), 52-96; and Traders, Planters, and Slaves: Market Behavior in Early English America (Cambridge, 1986). 5. Charles Joyner, Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 15. 6. Samuel Dyssli, December 3,1737, quoted in Wood, Black Majority, 132. 7. Grant to the Earl of Egmont, June 16, 1768, in the governor's letterbook, a series of bound ledgers identified as bundle 659, for Ballindalloch Castle Muniments; hereafter BCM 659. The papers of James Grant of Bal lindalloch are in possession of Sir Ewan Macpherson-Grant, Bart. Access permission must come from The Secretary, National Register of Archives (Scotland), P.O. Box 36, Edinburgh. 8. Grant to Richard Oswald, September 20,1764, BCM 659. Evacuation is discussed in Jean Parker Waterbury, The Oldest City: St. Augustine, Saga of Survival (St. Augustine Historical Society, 1983), chapters 3 and 4. Also in Major Francis Ogilvie to Board of Trade, St. Augustine, January 26, 1764, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Colonial Office, series 5, volume 540 (hereafter CO 5/540). 9. Grant to Oswald, November 21,1764, BCM 659. For evidence of Moul trie's efforts to recruit settlers and to send seeds, tools, and advice see his 1764 and 1765 letters to Grant in BCM 261. Daniel Littlefield also found that Grant based his plans on South Carolina; see his Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in Colonial South Carolina (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 63. See also Grant to Lords of Trade, August 29 and September 2,1764, CO 5/540. For Moultrie's medical degree and thesis, see Wood, Black Majority, 82. 10. Grant to Richard Oswald, August 31,1766, BCM 659. For responses 98 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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of seventeenth-century English colonists to heat in the tropical colonies, see Karen Ordahl Kupperman, "Fear of Hot Climates in the Anglo-American Colonial Experience," William and Mary Quarterly (3d series), 41 (April 1984): 213-40. 11. September 1,1766, BCM 659. 12. February 9,1768, BCM 659. 13. Ibid.; a similar letter to Lord Moira, June 20,1768, BCM 659. 14. June 16,1768, BCM 659. Egmont had only recently resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty. See Daniel L. Schafer, "Plantation Development in British East Florida: A Case Study of the Earl of Egmont," Florida Historical Quarterly 43 (October 1984): 172-83. 15. Eight who arrived with Grant in 1764 were highly trained and ex pensive "French Negroes" purchased in London. Grant to Henry Laurens, November 18,1764, BCM 659; Grant to Egmont, March 6,1765, BCM 399. 16. Grant to Egmont, March 6,1765, BCM 399. 17. June 15,1767, BCM 243. 18. Laurens to Grant, June 21, 1765, BCM 359. The cost for these men was or "bare cost" to Laurens. 19. Grant to Laurens, August 17,1765, BCM 659. 20. Schedule of Grant's affairs by computation, June and September 1769; May and June 1770 (all in BCM 305). 21. Grant to Lords of Trade, January 6,1770, CO 5/551. 22. Grant to Michael Herries, October 1,1770, BCM 659. 23. For the next decade Grant's indigo plantation brought him high returns. September 11,1769, BCM 659. 24. January 18,1766, BCM 401. All Graham correspondence cited here is in bundle 401. 25. April 23,1766, BCM 659. Price was 26. Graham to Grant, October 29,1767. 27. September 16,1767. 28. December 14,1767. 29. December 17,1767. 30. Plantation inventory, May 13,1770, BCM 305. 31. Graham to Grant, June 25, 30, 1768. For place names on the African coast, see Littlefield, Rice and Slaves, 38. 32. August 22,1768. The Gold Coast is today's Ghana. 33. January 25,1769. 34. The Ibo homeland is southeast Nigeria. 35. September 11,1769. 36. March 19,1769. 37. June 2,1767. 38. March 10,1768. Daniel L. Schafer 99

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39Laurens to James Penman, Charles Town, February 9, 1768, in George C. Rogers, Jr., ed., The Papers of Henry Laurens, vol. 5, September 1, 1765-July 31, 1768 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1976), 592, 573-4. The new owner was pleased with the man but complained that "unfortunately he had a Wife Tack'd to him, a good stout wench." See Penman to Grant, February 16,1768, BCM 491. 40. On Oswald and Bance Island, see A. P. Kup, A History of Sierra Leone, 1400-1787 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 190-91. See also Public Ledger, Edinburgh, September 11,1784, an advertisement for the sale of Bance Island (copy in National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh). 41. November 21,1764, BCM 659. 42. Engineer James Moncrief found the land low, but concluded that if drainage ditches were dug it would produce excellent crops of indigo. Ibid., February 12,1765. 43. February 23,1765. See Rogers, The Papers of Henry Laurens 4:585. 44. Laurens to Grant, April 20,1765, BCM 359. 45. Ibid. John Graham was also aware of value that could accrue from natural increase, recommending to Grant that young women always be in cluded in purchases: "The young ones will even do more than keep up the number. A few likely young Wenches must be in the parcell, & should their Husbands fail in their duty, I dare say my friend Sweetinham & other publick Spirited Young Men, will be ready to render such an essential service to the Province as to give them some help." July 19,1765, BCM 401, quoted in Littlefleld, Rice and Slaves, 64. 46. Laurens to Oswald, October 16, 1767, in Rogers, Papers of Henry Laurens 5:370. 47. April 20,1765, BCM 359. 48. November 1,1765, BCM 359. 49. Grant to Oswald, October 12,1765, BCM 659. 50. Oswald to Grant, February 24,1766, BCM 295; also May 17,1765 and February 12,1766. Grant to Oswald, October 12,1765, BCM 359. 51. Grant to Oswald, August 31,1766, BCM 659. 52. Laurens to Oswald, August 12,1766, Rogers, Papers of Henry Laurens 5:156. 53. Grant to Shelburne, November 27,1766, CO 5/548. 54. Laurens to Grant, January 30, 1767, in Rogers, Papers of Henry Laurens 5:227. For information on Hewie, see Thomas W. Taylor, 'Settling a Colony over a Bottle of Claret': Richard Oswald and the British Settlement of Florida" (master's thesis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1984), 34-36. 55. Oswald to Grant, March 15,1767, BCM 295. 56. Taylor, "Settling a Colony," 269. 100 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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57Oswald to Grant, February 12, April 28, June 9 and 14,1766, BCM 295. 58. Ibid., May 20 and 29, 1767. To obtain slaves of the "best quality" Oswald authorized Savery to spend up to 2 per person, a price he implied was high for the time. Oswald sent a white carpenter, Philip Herries, who would train slaves to replace him. If all went well he would add a "Smith and Smith's Shop at Timokaa Wheeler or two, a Cooper or two & a few other white people, who shall be obliged to teach the Negros." 59. Ibid., February 19, 1768; Grant to Hillsborough, March, 1768, CO 5/5439; Grant to Oswald, February 9,1769, BCM 659. 60. Grant to Oswald, January 22,1769, BCM 659. 61. Ibid. 62. Grant to Hillsborough, January 16,1770, CO 5/551. 63. Oswald to Grant, February 1,1769, BCM 295. See also June 8,1770, for evidence of delivery. Oswald gave thirteen of the Africans to Grant for assistance at Mount Oswald. Oswald's cost had been "2 per head." The Charlotte Cape delivered another eighty to one hundred slaves from Bance Island to St. Augustine in September 1770. 64. Oswald to Grant, April 4,1770, BCM 295. 65. Taylor, "Settling a Colony," 55. 66. Yeats to Grant, July 2,1772, BCM 250. 67. Wilbur Henry Siebert, Loyalists in East Florida, 1774-1785: The Most Important Documents Pertaining Thereto, Edited With An Accompanying Narrative, 2 vols. (DeLand, Fla., 1929) 2:58; Taylor, "Settling a Colony," 56. 68. Oswald to John Lewis Gervais, Westminster, April 9 and 13,1774, in Rogers, Papers of Henry Laurens 9:395-98, 445-47. 69. Laurens to Grant, May 1, 1767, in Rogers, Papers of Henry Laurens 5:245. 70. Tonyn to George Germain, October 30, 1776, CO 5/557; also Janu ary 15,1777, and December 30,1775, 5/556. 71. Graham, Laurens, and Oswald frequently mentioned departure points of the African ships, but supply routes led from coastal forts hundreds of miles into the interior. For internal routes of trade and ethnicity, see Philip D. Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade, 2 vols. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975); Richard L. Roberts, Warriors, Merchants, and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700-1914 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1987); David Geggus, "Sex Ratio, Age, and Ethnicity in the Atlantic Slave Trade: Data From French Shipping and Plantation Records," Journal of African History 30 (1989); and Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 72. Moultrie to Grant, October 2, 1775, BCM 242. On rice elsewhere in Daniel L. Schafer 101

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East Florida, see May 7,1772, Nov. 3,1773, Dec. 23,1774, Oct. 2,1776, and March 12,1780, BCM 242. 73. Moultrie to Grant, March 3,1778, BCM 242. 74. Alexander Skinner to James Grant, September 21,1775, in Peter Force, American Archives, 4th series. Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, from the King's message to Parliament, of March 7, 1774, to the Declaration of Independence by the United States (Washington, D.C.: 1843), 4:329. 75. June 5,1780, BCM 250. 76. Yeats describes the robbery of a St. Augustine store by two of Grant's slaves in August 31,1771, BCM 250. 77. July 2,1771. 78. February 3,1781. 79. Tucker to Grant, London, December 12,1769, BCM 412. 80. Egmont to Grant, May 4,1769, BCM 264. 81. Record of plantation expenses, May 9 to December 31, 1771, BCM 517; Grant to Alexander Skinner, April 27,1771, BCM 659. 82. "Proceeds of sale of Negroes," July, 1797, BCM 619. 83. "Thoughts that may be of use to my people and plantation in the Bahamas," May 16,1784. Copy in the author's possession, courtesy of Robert H. Pratt, of Milwaukee, Wis. 84. Nassau, New Providence, June 22,1795, from the Pratt copies. 85. October 23,1775, BCM 250. 86. November 1,1775, BCM 483. 87. November 3,1775. 88. April 26,1776, BCM 772. 89. April 24,1776, BCM 772. 90. Robert Grant to James Grant, August 14,1764, BCM 305. 91. Grant to Lords of Trade, April 26,1766, CO 5/541. 92. Penman to Grant, Orange Grove, October 9,1769, BCM 491. 93. Ibid., October 19,1769. 94. Moultrie to Lord Hillsborough, June 29,1771, CO 5/551, and April 23, 1770, for four runaways from John Tucker's plantation. See Tonyn to Ger main, February 1,1779, Co 5/559, for ten runaways returned from a Creek village. 95. Owner claims for reimbursement for runaways can be found in Siebert, Loyalists in East Florida, vols. 1 and 2. For quantification and case studies, see Jane Landers, "Black Society in Spanish St. Augustine, 1784-1821" (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 1988), 164-70; and "Spanish Sanctuary: Fugitives in Florida, 1687-1790," Florida Historical Quarterly 62 (January 1984): 296-313. 102 African Americans in British East Florida, 1763-1784

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96. Turnbull to Arthur Gordon, Smyrna, September 1, 1776, CO 5/556; Tonyn to Germain, November 29,1779, CO 5/559. 97. Tonyn to Germain, July 18,1777, CO 5/557. 98. Creation of the militia companies is in Tonyn to Germain, August 21, 1776, co 5/556. 99. Tonyn to Germain, July 30,1781, CO 5/560; for planter confirmation of the sacrifices, see Yeats to Grant, March 20,1781, BCM 250. 100. Siebert, Loyalists in East Florida 1:26, 39; 2:168-71. 101. Tonyn to Secretary of State, August 15,1776, and July 18,1777, in CO 5/556, 557. The nearby William Chapman plantation was also destroyed. 102. Francis Harper, ed., The Travels of William Bartram: Naturalist's Edi tion (New Haven, 1958), 42-43. Visitor reports can be seen in Moultrie to Grant, June 3, 1773, BCM 370, and Mulcaster to Grant, August 9, 1774, BCM 369. For Bartram's plantation, see Bailyn, Voyagers, 469-74. 103. On Cecilton and evacuation to Dominica, see Egmont Papers, Addi tional Manuscripts 47054 A, British Museum, London, folios 39-84; and Schafer, "Plantation Development... A Case Study of the Earl of Egmont." 104. London, March 31,1783, CO, 5/560. 105. Taylor, 'Settling a Colony over a Bottle of Claret,' 86-87. Daniel L. Schafer 103

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O 5 A Troublesome Property Master-Slave Relations in Florida, 1821-1865 Larry E. Rivers ^WHFTHHE PROFUSION of historical studies on antebellum ^^a southern slavery eloquently testifies to the long, con tinuing interest that the subject commands. The literature ranges from early-twentieth-century "happy-slave-on-the-old-plantation" portraits to quantitative analyses of the size and numbers of slave revolts, to psychological reflections on "social death" and the results of the exercise of absolute power by one human being over others. One particularly important body of research has addressed the dynam ics of the master-slave relationship, which scholars such as John W. Blassingame and Eugene D. Genovese, among others, have argued was the denning feature of the southern slave system.1 Despite the proliferation of these studies, scant attention has been given to the subject as it relates to antebellum Florida. Florida differed in several respects from other states in the Old South. As a Spanish colony, it represented a haven for runaway slaves from the southern United States. Fugitives, free blacks, and Semi nole Indians formed alliances and lived together in East Florida as well as in remote sections of the peninsula. Among these groups, the tradition of resistance flourished.2 Regarded from 1821 as a law less territorial outpost and after 1845 as a frontier state, Florida remained sparsely settled through the Civil War. In i860, for example, only three of its towns claimed a population of more than 2,000 inhabitants.3 However, the region lying between the Apalachicola and Suwannee rivers developed early a slave-based plantation economy

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similar to that of other southern states. The areawhich consisted of present-day Jackson, Gadsden, Leon, Jefferson, and Madison coun tieswas called Middle Florida. There, well-heeled planter families from Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia established substantial plantation operations. Planters from other states began moving into Middle Florida with high expectations shortly after the territory was acquired in 1821, but they clearly understood the potential for troubled relations with their slaves in the new locale. To maintain and shore up their power, terri torial planters soon enacted severe slave codes and other race-related statutes designed to ensure physical and psychological dominance over their laborers. Slaves, however, resisted the absolute power of their masters, leading many owners to view their slaves as, indeed, "a troublesome property." 4 This essay examines three arenas in which the tensions between masters and slaves were manifested: religious behavior, interpersonal relations, and work. Planters and managers varied in their attitudes toward religious expression. Some believed it represented autonomy and, therefore, threatened the domination of slaves, while others felt religion should be used as an instrument of control. Zephaniah Kingsley, one of Florida's most flamboyant slaveholders, was skeptical about allowing any type of religious worship on his Duval County plantation. "All the late insurrections of slaves," he claimed, "are to be traced to influential preachers of the gospel." However, when Kingsley attempted to eliminate black religious activity on his plantation, he was largely unsuccessful. The slaves resisted efforts to disband their church and continued to hold "private nightly meetings" once or twice a week. In fact, Kingsley noted that one slave, "calling himself a minister," had completely taken "all authority over the negroes" from the overseer and himself. Kingsley may have ex aggerated this point, but he continued to complain that slaves were harder to manage, disobeyed his orders more frequently, and stole more of his food after the minister's arrival.5 In Madison County, Judge Wilkerson would not permit slave gatherings of any sort. Despite their owner's noted cruelty and their own awareness of the consequences of their actions, some of Wilkerson's slaves continued to meet and conduct religious ser vices in secret. Wilkerson's ex-slave Charlotte Martin reported that Larry E. Rivers 105

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her brother had paid the ultimate price for such defiance, being "whipped to death for taking part in one of the religious ceremonies." Thereafter the secret religious meetings ceased. Unlike Kingsley, Wilkerson was willing to use brutal force to assert hegemony over the slaves in this regard.6 Slave religion also proved a source of conflict on one of two Jeffer son County plantations owned by George Noble Jones, an absentee landlord. The overseer of the El Destino plantation believed that the slave church was at the root of his disciplinary problems, which included acts of insubordination, flight, and low productivity. In a letter to Jones, overseer D.N. Moxley stated, "I have heard since I came to town that Jim Page [El Destino's free-black minister] and his crew has bin the cass of all the fuss."7 A month later Moxley an nounced that he had "stopped Page from coming to the plantation." During the remainder of the overseer's three-year tenure he made no further mention of the plantation church. Since El Destino slaves had Sundays off, however, some bondsmen may have continued their "religious activities" without James Page's assistance.8 Some planters actively encouraged religiosity in their slaves, be lieving it facilitated slave control. Leon County planter Thomas Randall allowed bondsmen to build a church before they built their own cabins. He then generously offered a "helpful" hand in selecting their preacher.9 Susan Bradford Eppes recalled that on her father's Leon County plantation, the "negroes were preached to every Sun day," although by a white preacher.10 A former bondsman on the Bradford plantation, Claude Augusta Wilson, remembered that the slaves were allowed to gather at "a poorly constructed frame building which was known as the Meeting House," to give praise to "their" God.11 Similarly, Bolden Hall, who grew up on a Jefferson County plantation, noted that his master "did not interfere with [slaves'] reli gious quest" and that he and many other bondsmen "were permitted to attend church with their masters to hear the white preacher and occasionally ... an itinerant colored minister preached to the slaves instructing them to obey their master and mistress at all times."12 Planters like Jackson County's James Carr often sought to gain the confidence and loyalty of their slaves by allowing or requiring them to worship with plantation whites. However, Carr's ex-slave Margaret Nickerson recalled that "de white preachers . tole us to 106 Master-Slave Relations in Florida, 1821-1865

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mind our masters and missus and we would be saved; if not, dey said we wouldn'. Dey never tole us nothin 'bout Jesus." Carr's wife, Jane, served as the plantation church's Sunday school teacher, but was careful not to allow the slaves to touch her books for fear that some might learn to read and write. Despite her precautions, how ever, the slave Uncle George Bull did learn to read and write from the weekly lessons and was subsequently beaten for his impudence.13 Former slave Douglas Dorsey echoed Nickerson's skepticism con cerning the type of religious instruction delivered by whites. He reminisced that "slaves were order[ed] to church to hear a white minister, . [and he would tell] them to honor their masters and mistresses, and to have no other God but them, as 'we cannot see the other God, but you can see your master and mistress.'" The ex-slave also stated that the slave driver's wife, who could read and write a little, would tell the slaves that what the minister had just said was "all lies."14 Even black preachers who were paid by planters encountered skep ticism from slaves. James Page, who had been "freed by the Parker Family" of Tallahassee and selected by planters to preach to bonds men and -women on various Middle Florida plantations, found that some slaves rejected his ministry and did not "accept Christ" at his behest. At least, ex-slave Louis Napoleon insisted that such was the case.15 However, such resistance did not deter masters from con tinued attempts to direct the religious expression of their slaves. Slaveholders even sought posthumously to exert religious control over their slaves. In their wills, William Bailey and John Bellamy stipulated that their slaves be instructed in religion at least "once or twice a month on the Sabbath day."16 Another private arena of slave life that masters sought to con trol was the interpersonal relations of their slaves. Although neither federal nor state laws sanctioned slave marriages, masters usually allowed slaves to marry and maintain families, believing that the practice led to good behavior and higher productivity. Zephaniah Kingsley noted that slaves were attached to their homes, wives and children, and domestic life and that "they were less troublesome, more productive and a growing property" when they could live in their own "cabins as married couples."17 Thomas Randall, the over seer of Wirtland plantation, also believed that family ties were criti-Larry E. Rivers

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The Reverend James Page. Page was a traveling slave preacher who was freed by his owner in 1851. He became the first black ordained minister in Florida and was the first pastor of the Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, in the late nineteenth century.

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cal to happiness and productivity. He feared that one of his bonds men, David, "would infect the whole body of the black community with his despondence" if his children and wife were not purchased and brought to Wirtland. To keep harmony in the slave community, Randall secured permission from the owner, William Wirt, to effect the purchase.18 When the Wirtland nurse, Betsy, asked to marry Noah, a slave living on a nearby plantation, that request was also honored.19 Not all planters were so lenient about spouses or visitors from other plantations. Douglas Dorsey's master was uncompromising concerning slave visitations. A slave who was caught off plantation, Dorsey remembered, would be tied to a whipping post and "lashed on the bare back."20 Although planters such as Zephaniah Kingsley, John and Robert Gamble, William Wirt, George Noble Jones, and others tried to discourage their slaves from visiting or marrying slaves from other plantations, they were forced to compromise as the population of male slaves on some of their properties began to out number females. Still, they used the possibility of marriage as a re ward. Slaves were permitted to marry off the plantation in exchange for loyalty and efficient work.21 Absentee planters like George N. Jones often permitted overseers to make decisions concerning slave marriages. After facing disci plinary problems, John Evans, the overseer of the Chemonie plan tation in Jefferson County, refused to allow any slave to marry off the plantation. Later, Evans compromised by allowing Chemonie's workers to marry slaves from Jones's other plantation. El Destine In 1851 Evans informed Jones that he had given Peggy permission to marry Ansler at El Destino provided that he took her to El Destino with him to marry. The next year, the overseer permitted two couples, James and Martha and Lafayette and Lear, to marry. Even tually so many slaves married that Jones directed Evans to send him a list of "all the names of the Negroes on Chemonie in Famleys."22 Even among planters who objected to visitations and marriage off the plantation, some seemed willing to allow their slaves to marry bondsmen from plantations owned by the planters' family members. John and Robert Gamble gave several slaves from their Waukeenah and Welaunee plantations permission to marry on the Wirtland plantation of their brother-in-law William Wirt. Wirt reciprocated. Larry E. Rivers 109

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Former slaves from northeast Florida, ca. 1875. This family of six included both parents, three small children, and a nursing child. Courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society. Although a black minister usually performed the marriage ceremony, Wirt's son Henry performed several himself. Slave weddings allowed planters to demonstrate their paternalism. George N. Jones had a cabin built for Chesley and his wife, and the Gamble brothers pur chased articles for housekeeping, as well as new dresses, trousers, and shirts for their newly-married slave couples.23 On occasion gifts were given for less honorable reasons. An up roar ensued at El Destino, for example, when slaves learned that Jonathan Roberson, the sawmill overseer, was courting favors from one of the slave women. The woman admitted that Roberson had given her "gifts of whiskey on several occasions in exchange of cer tain favors." Since slave men of marrying age outnumbered such 110 Master-Slave Relations In Florida, 1821-1865

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women at El Destino and Chemonie, male bondsmen saw Roberson as an unfair competitor and an intruder in the plantation courtship rituals. Roberson's authority was compromised after this incident. Slaves working at the mill became overtly resistant and so unproduc tive that the owner considered dismissing Roberson as his agent, an action urged by overseers on both plantations.24 Just as slaveholders tried to control the religious behavior and interpersonal relations of the slaves, they also sought to regulate their work patterns. Even though it gave planters absolute power, the legal system could not ensure effective control of the quality or quantity of work performed. Alteration of entrenched patterns and customary levels of production often proved difficult because slaves resisted. When El Destino's overseer, Moxley, flogged many slaves for "coming up short" on their cotton picking, four slaves fled from the plantation.25 Planter Jones asked Evans, the overseer at Chemonie, to investigate. Not surprisingly, Evans supported his col league although he admitted to Jones that the whippings had been rather severe. Evans could hardly judge Moxley's actions objectively since he was having his own slave problems and also had resorted to frequent floggings. As Evans wrote in frustration to Jones, "I am doeing all I knoe [to make the slaves work]."26 Poor supervision exacerbated problems. Both Evans and Moxley blamed their difficulties in punishing slaves on Jonathan Roberson, the sawmill overseer, who seemed incapable of supervising or mask ing his dependence upon the fifteen or more slaves under his control. This group took every opportunity to challenge his power. In an effort at compromise, Roberson allowed the slaves to report to work after sunrise and to work under less immediate supervision than was permitted other bondsmen on the two plantations.27 Since the slaves had permission to visit either plantation and to party together on occasion, they likely discussed their newly won autonomy with the other slaves. The outcome was predictable. "If they see negroes around them Ideling," Evans reported, "why they want to doe so two [sic]."28 Evans and Moxley followed the path trod by many other overseers and were unyielding in pushing slaves to work more efficiently. In time, Chemonie and El Destino slaves tried to undermine their overseers' authority by communicating directly with their owner during Larry E. Rivers 111

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his intermittent visits. This practice so frustrated Evans that he wrote to his employer in 1856, "Your negroes behave badly behind my back and then run to you and you appear to beleave what they say." After serving Jones for over a decade, Evans tendered his letter of resigna tion that year.29 The methods used to make slaves work productively and efficiently varied from place to place. In the eastern and southern areas of Florida, where sugar, cotton, and tobacco were grown, planters em ployed the task system; in Middle Florida, where most of the larger plantations were located, they used the gang system. Of the two systems, slaves seemed to prefer the former. Zephaniah Kingsley wrote that his slaves were pleased with the task system, worked more effi ciently, and were less rebellious when allowed to complete the as signed tasks by two or three o'clock each day. No records suggest dis ciplinary problems among Kingsley's workers.30 Achille Murat also employed the task system. He claimed that his workers were usually finished with their work around three or four o'clock and were then allowed to attend to their private concerns.31 In Middle Florida some plantations, such as Wirtland, were siz able enough to employ both systems, but this duality led to power struggles over the work regime and the type of activity that slaves found appropriate.32 A new Wirtland slave, Henry Minor, was ac customed to a degree of independence since he had previously been hired out. When Minor was instructed to plant trees, he complained about outdoor work and finally asked to be sold. Mrs. Wirt was com pelled to remind her agent that she had absolute power over Henry's life and that "he is not his own master, to come and go as he pleases, to the arrogance [sic] of his owner."33 Despite such assertions, owners sometimes acknowledged slaves' attempts to define the terms of their labor. In 1843 Ellen Wirt dis cussed Lucy's proposed assignment in the field and noted that she was "unfit for the field, yet, she makes no objection to cooking." When Ellen attempted to sell Charles, who had worked at the sawmill as a field hand, Charles "took it upon himself to tell [the prospective buyer] that he had never been in the field and done any hard work." Ellen noted, "Of course, Mr. Crong decline[d] closing the bargain."34 Another of Wirt's slaves, Eliza, believed that her task was to cook, "and [she had] the notion that nothing else [is] to be expected of her." 112 Master-Slave Relations in Florida, 1821-1865

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la ^wsiin^ei Term, 184&rif$t
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The slave never completely fulfilled her owners' expectations even after repeated corporal punishment.35 The Wirts finally threatened to sell Eliza to "Cherokee Planters without one feeling of regret." When planters failed to allow a degree of autonomy, slaves resisted with patterns of poor performance. Not only did they challenge the gang system repeatedly, but they even challenged less demanding assignments. One owner complained that a house servant worked to her own "liking" and that another, Emaline, "has turned out so badly that she has been ejected from the kitchen. She was not only impudent to Rosetta [the white worker] and unmanageable ... [but] dishonest." John, who took care of the carriage and horses, was "lazy and inefficient," the same frustrated owner accused.36 In the face of such challenges, some owners and overseers used force to enhance their authority. Louis Goldsborough whipped a disgruntled slave who packed cotton poorly. "The packer has been punished severely, and too in as formal and inspiring a manner as I thought the occasion deserved," Goldsborough recorded. "The pun ishment I inflicted in the presence of all the colored people on the plantation . and by telling them of the offense committed, and giving them to understand what each and all might expect for such a similar conduct."37 But even fear of severe punishments did not coerce all bondsmen. Former slave Margrett Nickerson remembered that her sister Holly, who worked on William Carr's plantation, refused to be driven at any pace other than the one she had established for herself. "Holly didn' stand back on non' uv em," Nickerson recalled, "when dey'd git behin' her, she'd git behin' dem; she wuz dat stubbo'n and when dey would beat her she wouldn' holler and jes take it and go on."38 When corporal punishment failed, as it often did, slavemasters were left with few options except threatening to sell rebellious blacks. Former slave Acie Thomas of Jefferson County recalled that it did not take "tearing the hid[e] off" a slave to get him or her to behave; instead, the suggestion that the master would "sell him to some po' white trash . alius brougt good results."39 Over time many slaveholders learned that neither severe punish ment nor threat of sale would modify behavior or work patterns of some bondsmen. They learned that their laborers, at least occasion ally, required positive inducements. Rewards for good work or good 114 Master-Slave Relations in Florida, 1821-1865

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behavior might include extra days off during the holidays, addi tional food allotments, additional free time, or money. According to Douglas Parish, his master "fed his slaves well, [and] gave them comfortable quarters in which to live . and if the slaves failed to do their work, they were reported to him and not to the overseer for punishment." Acie Thomas recalled, "Slaves were often given time off for frolics, dances, and quilting-weddings." She also claimed that some Jefferson County slaveholders prided themselves on giving their slaves "the finest parties."40 Rewards and inducements varied widely and often were tailored to address personal needs and special circumstances. Wally, one of the Wirtland overseers, gave money to an old slave named Quak as a reward for work well done. In 1850, he presented Jud Poll with $2 to purchase an outfit for his wife-to-be. A year later, he purchased cook ing utensils for certain slaves for good conduct. Laura Randall gave two of her father's slaves dresses for them to wear when they married men on her uncle John Gamble's plantation in Jefferson County.41 As a cooperative gesture, J. K. Gibbs, Kingsley's nephew and overseer at Fort George, gave bondsmen time off to plant and harvest their crops, noting that it "is a rule which we have, to give all the Negroes one day in the Spring to plant and one in the fall to reap." Gibbs also gave the slaves extra rations and four days off during the Christmas holidays. "[I] got the Beef for the people on yesterday," he recorded on December 25,1841, "and gave out double allowances of corn and salt also, so that the Negroes could feed their holliday visitorsof course, no work for anybody."42 While slaves no doubt welcomed such gifts, they also worked hard to lessen their dependence on their masters. When assigned tasks were completed, slaves on the Kingsley plantation, for example, tended their gardens and fished as a way of feeding themselves and their families. According to Murat, blacks on his plantation raised poultry and pigs for themselves, grew their own vegetables, and could sell them at market.43 Other slaves stole food and other items. One overseer claimed that a slave named Mugin was up to his "old trade of stealing chickens [at night]."44 A slave named Dick was noted for stealing watermel ons and stopped his thefts only after a dog seized him by the "seat of his pants."45 Two "trusted" slaves of the Eppes family, Molly and Larry E. Rivers 115

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Randall Junior, conspired to steal bacon from the smokehouse to ex change for whiskey when Randall journeyed to Tallahassee with a delivery of cotton. The theft was discovered and although the slaves' punishments are not known, Eppes noted that "this may not have been Randall's first offense, but it was certainly his last."46 Planters regularly punished thefts by slaves but failed to prevent further losses or the repeated challenges to their authority. Realizing that overt opposition to a master's control would lead to punishment, slaves developed alternative, less easily countered forms of resistance. They learned early that feigning illness was one simple, yet difficult-to-disprove evasion. According to the overseer of the El Destino mill, four or five of the slaves under his control nor mally were "sick." During one four-month period about one-third of the workforce was confined to the quarters because of illness. The Wirt plantations were likewise afflicted. Chemonie's overseer, A. R. McCall, reported that Ellen was not sick but trying to "deceive" him.47 Alexander Randall reflected McCall's sentiments when he said that Nelly "is not much sick . and supposes herself privileged [by not having to work]."48 The number of slaves who became ill rose during the planting and harvesting seasons. In September 1839 Ellen Wirt Voss complained that "almost every man, woman, and child with two exceptions have been sick."49 Louis Wirt recorded that his mother's bondsmen were constantly sick during the warm season. Henry Wirt summed up the illness on the Wirtland planta tion in 1843 by stating, "I think Charlotte [a slave] told me there was more sickness during the months of May, June, and July among the negroes that she had ever known."50 In addition to feigning illness, slaves found other means of ma nipulating their masters. When Squire Jackson's master came upon him reading, the bondsman quickly turned the paper upside down and began to shout, "The Confederates don won the War." The mas ter laughed at what he heard and walked away without disciplining the slave.51 A quiet-acting slave at Chemonie was so overjoyed by the news of her freedom that she dropped her crutches and began to walk. The former master was quite disgusted with this revelation since he had excused her from doing any "real work" for seven years.52 Some apparently compliant bondsmen showed different sides of their per sonalities when there was little chance of being punished. According 116 Master-Slave Relations in Florida, 1821-1865

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to the daughter of a Middle Florida planter, the cook and faithful servant, Emeline, changed overnight after learning of her freedom. When asked to cook for her former master, Emeline replied, "Take dem keys back ter yer mother an' tell her [I] don't never 'spects ter cook no more, not while I livestell her I's free, bless de Lord!" De spite repeated requests, Emeline refused to change her mind.53 Not all resistance was covert, however. Some slaves openly defied the power and authority of their masters, sometimes by attempts to physically harm owners and overseers. Laura Randall claimed in 1832 that three of her slaves had conspired to poison their overseer. One of the accused, Sally, was "banished" from the house and two other slaves were sold. After witnessing the brutal treatment of his mother, another slave, Douglas Dorsey, plotted to serve his master strych nine with his coffee. Fortunately for both, as Dorsey remembered, "Freedom had saved him of this act which would have resulted in his death."54 When four women from the El Destino plantation who had run away to escape flogging were captured and returned, the overseer started to whip one of the runaways. Her brother, Aberdeen, then attacked the overseer with an axe. Aberdeen afterwards was given a "genteel floging" in front of the entire slave community.55 When Chemonie's overseer attempted to whip Winter, the slave confronted him, saying that he "would not take it," and ran off to the neighbor ing plantation of El Destino, where he stayed for at least four days before returning.56 Every member of the planter class knew that running away was the disgruntled slave's immediate and most effective way of resisting his master's control. Donorena Harris noted in her study of Florida runaways between 1821 and i860 that only a small percentage of slaveowners regularly advertised their runaways because those who frequently absconded were usually caught within a few days.57 Of 742 identified slaves who fled Florida farms and plantations, 148, or 20 percent, were repeaters, and a few were habitual offenders. Those slaves who had been on a plantation for only a brief period were most prone to escape. Of the 742 runaways, 77 percent were males, averaging twenty-nine years of age. Some left when new masters or overseers took control of the enterprise; others fled out of anger or frustration. Still others ran away because of the separation of a family member, and some absconded out of a simple desire to be free.58 Larry E. Rivers 117

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"Mauma Mollie," ca. 1850s. Mauma Mollie was brought from Africa to South Carolina on a slave ship and became nursemaid for the children of John and Eliza Partridge of Jefferson, Florida, in the 1830s. Henry Edward Partridge wrote in his diary in 1873 tnat "We buried either in 57 or 58 our faithful old 'Mauma' Mollieher who had nursed nearly all of the children of the family; been a friend as well as a faithful servant to my Mother; in whose cabin we had often eaten the homely meal of fried bacon & ash cake and where we always had welcome and sympathy and whom we loved as a second mother. Black of skin but pure of heart, she doubtless stands among the faithful on the right of the King." Courtesy of the Florida State Archives.

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R TEN DOLLARS REWARD. AN AWAY from the sub scriber, a Negro man na med Charles, and a Negro wo man named Dorcas. The man is about forty years old, and the woman thirty-eight. The man is.very blackabout five feet nine inches in height, with the African marks on his face of his na tive country. The woman is about five feet nine inches, and rather thick set. Any per son returning them shall receive the above reward. HENRY W. MAXEY. Cedar Point, March 4. 1 wlO ' Mtmmmmmmmmt I > Runaway slave advertisement from the Jacksonville Courier, April 16,1835, in which planter Henry Maxey described the facial scarification of his Africanborn slave Charles, who escaped with a female companion, Dorcas. Courtesy of the Florida Historical Society. Slaves ran away throughout the year, and although Harris concluded that more left the plantation in February, April, May, and June than at any other time, other contemporary sources indicate that most es capees fled during June, July, August, and September.59 Interestingly, many planters revealed a gross misperception of their chattel's personality in describing their runaways. Susan Bradford Eppes expressed great surprise when a trusted and reliable plowhand, Laurence, left the Bradford plantation. She remembered that he was not provoked in any way but had just "disappeared" one day.60 Another slave master insisted that Tom was "usually very polite and pausible when spoken to" but displayed more insight when he added that Tom was an "artful scamp, if he thought it to his advantage might deny he belonged or knew me or even change his name."61 Larry E. Rivers 119

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Edward Houston admitted that his runaway was "forward in speak ing and not timid," as well as being well-dressed when he escaped.62 Although only a tiny portion of Florida's slave population resorted to illegal flight in any given year, the problem nonetheless plagued slaveholders throughout the period.63 Once a slave had fled his master's control, his or her destination varied according to several factors. Young, married slaves were more likely to remain within Florida. Ties of family and affection rated high as a cause of slave flight, as bondsmen and -women often left in search of family members or loved ones. One runaway, Hannah, was "believed to be headed for Tallahassee where her mother lives." Other slaves like George and John were thought to be "lurking at Black Creek where they have Wives." One owner offered a handsome $200 reward for the return of two children who had run away to seek their "freed mother." Abram, a Leon County slave, was at large look ing "for his wife." Levenia left Tallahassee for Quincy where "she has a husband." In some cases entire families vanished, as did Nelson, his wife Jinny, and their son and daughter.64 Those runaways with fewer familial ties to bind them did not linger in Middle Florida, but moved on to central or southern Florida or to the Bahamas. Aware of traditional alliances forged between slaves, free blacks, and Seminole Indians during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries under both Spanish and British rule, slaves from the plantations throughout Florida logically made their way to black and Indian settlements scattered throughout the penin sula. Slave hunters such as John Winslett pursued runaways living among the peninsular maroons at the risk of their lives.65 Some runaways looked beyond the peninsula for a haven in the Bahamas. In 1842, several slaves escaped from St. Augustine on boats belonging to the local pilots of the harbor. They headed to the Bahamas, robbing and murdering a Key Biscayne man en route to their destination. After arrival in the islands, the runaways remained safe under British jurisdiction despite pleas from planters for their return to Florida.66 Inevitably, some planters came to believe that their runaways were being assisted by abolitionists in Florida, although these reformers were never a threat to the institution of slavery in the territory or Master-Slave Relations in Florida, 1821-1865

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state. White assistance to slave flight often was an individual act, not a well-planned conspiracy to aid in the escape of "large" numbers of slaves. In many such cases no records exist on the sentence of the guilty party, although many offenders were not punished to the highest extent of the law. According to former slave Shack Thomas, some alleged abolitionists were simply run out of town.67 One cele brated 1844 case involved Jonathan Walker, a Boston abolitionist, who abetted the escape of seven Pensacola slaves. All of the culprits were apprehended and returned. The slaves went back to their re spective masters, while Walker stood trial and was found guilty of "aiding and abetting" runaways. The court ordered that he be placed in the pillory, branded on the hand with the letters 55, imprisoned for fifteen days, and fined S150.68 Not all master-slave relationships were characterized by conflict at least according to the WPA accounts of elderly Florida freedmen. Some bondsmen seemed to identify with the master as a father figure, while others may have remained loyal in hopes of manumis sion. Bolden Hall recalled that his master had been "very good to his slaves . and provided them with plenty of food and clothing, and always saw to it that their cabins were liveable."69 Louis Napo leon stated that "his master and mistress were very kind to the slaves and would never whip them"; if a black was whipped, the slave had only to report the incident to the "master and the 'driver' was dis missed." 70 Willis Williams reminisced that his master was kind, and that he had no "unpleasant experiences as related by some other ex-slaves." He was never flogged, and he was pleased to sit in the balcony at the same church attended by his owner.71 The promise of eventual freedom kept Cato loyal to his master, Jesse Potts, until his death. Other Middle Florida planters also freed loyal slaves in their wills, provided they "left" the country upon their owner's death.72 Slaves in Middle Florida were, indeed, a "troublesome property," and the master-slave relationship was continually contested. The master, who was supported by law, social institutions, and estab lished regional values, demanded obedience. Although slaves had no legal redress and few social supports, they nevertheless realized that the master's reliance upon slave labor was an effective source of power for them. Despite their "social death," Florida slaves cre-Larry E. Rivers 121

55John Evans to George Jones, October 8, 1854, Florida Slave Narratives, no. 56. Ibid., February 9,1848, 57. 57. Donorena Harris, "Abolitionist Sentiment in Florida 1821-1860" (M.A. thesis, Florida State University, 1989), 99. 58. To identify slave runaways, the author consulted the principal diaries, journals, letter collections, memoirs, and state and local histories covering the period 1821-60, as well as the principal extant newspapers published within Florida during the period. Particularly helpful were Florida Plantation Records', "Diary of David L.White"; "Diary of William D. Moseley"; Eppes, Negro in the Old South, Shofher, History of Jefferson County, Jerrell H. Shofner, Jackson County, Florida: A History (Marianna, Fla.: Jackson County Heri tage Association, 1985); William Wirt Papers; Louis Goldsborough Papers. Notes as to specific references are in collection of the author, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee. 59. Harris, "Abolitionist Sentiment," 102. 60. Eppes, Negro in the Old South, 99-100. 61. Jacksonville Florida News, March 12, 1853. See also Pensacola Gazette, October 14,1828. 62. Tallahassee Florida Watchman, April 28,1838. 63. An exception to the small percentage of slaves fleeing occurred in the period 1835-36, when the Second Seminole War began. Joshua R. Giddings, Kenneth W Porter, and Canter Brown, Jr., have stressed that hundreds, if not 1,000 or more, slaves deserted to the hostiles during the period. Joshua R. Giddings, The Exiles of Florida: or, The Crimes Committed by Our Government Against the Maroons, Who Fled from South Carolina and Other Slave States, Seeking Protection Under Spanish Laws (Columbus, Ohio, 1858; reprint ed., Gainesville, 1964), 97-134; Porter, "Negro Abraham," 17-18; Brown, "Race Relations." 64. Tallahassee Floridian and Journal, April 12, June 12,1851, July 31,1852; Jacksonville Courier, August 9,1835, January 4,1851. 65. Clarence E. Carter, ed., Territorial Papers of the United States, vols. 22-26, Florida Territory (Washington, D.C., 1956-1962), 22:763; American State Papers: Military Affairs, 7 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1832-60), 6:453; Louis Goldsborough to William Wirt, February 1834, Thomas Randall to Wirt, October 13, 1827, Randall to Mrs. Wirt, December 29, 1827, Wirt Papers; Louis Goldsborough to Catharine Goldsborough, November 2,1827, Golds borough Papers. 66. St. Augustine News, April 13, 1839, September 17, 1842, March 18, June 3, October 23,1843, January 20,1844; St. Augustine Florida Herald and Southern Democrat, July 11, 1843; Tallahassee Floridian, November 1, 1845; Tallahassee Floridian and Advocate, July 12,1834. 126 Master-Slave Relations in Florida, 1821-1865

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67. In 1844 James Kelly was found guilty in a Leon County court of aiding a runaway. Charles S. Powell was accused of assisting a "slave with an escape/' but found not guilty of the charge in Jackson County. Jeffer son County's Irwin Ganger aided in the unsuccessful escape of a slave belonging to Nicholas Branch. Leon County Circuit Court Minute Book 4, 247, Leon County Courthouse, Tallahassee; Jackson County Circuit Court Order Book A, November 1844, Jefferson County Courthouse. 68. Jonathan Walker, Trial and Imprisonment of Jonathan Walker at Pensa-cola, Florida, for Aiding Slaves to Escape From Bondage (Boston, 1845; facsimile ed., Gainesville, 1974), 32-73; Tallahassee Floridian and Journal, February 20, 1858; Tallahassee Floridian, January 6,1836, September 2,1848. 69. Blassingame, Slave Community, 304; Florida Slave Narratives, 165. 70. Florida Slave Narratives, 243, 25759. 71. Ibid., 348. For other bondsmen and -women who felt an attachment to the master and his family, see Laura Wirt to Elizabeth Wirt, July 14, 1844, Catharine W. Randall to Ellen McCormick, September 11,1844, Wirt Papers; John Evans to George Jones, June 15,1855, Florida Plantation Records, 128-29. 72. Will of Jesse Potts, August 4, 1829, and will of Robert S. Edmund, August 3, 1850, Gadsden County Will Book A, Gadsden County Court house, Quincy. See also wills of slaveholders in Madison, Leon, Jackson, and Jefferson counties concerning manumission of slaves upon the master's death (all on microfilm at Florida State Archives). Larry E. Rivers 127

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<3> 6 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835 George Klos ^^^^^^BHE RISE OF Jacksonian democracy in the United States ^HH during the 1820s and 1830s led to a national program of Indian displacement for the benefit of white settlers and land speculators. Disputes between whites and Native Americans over the pos session of black slaves was a very prominent feature of Indian removal from Florida. Unlike Indian removal in other parts of the United States, land was not the main issue; thousands of acres of public land could be had in Florida without dispossessing the Seminoles. Mediation of white-Seminole disputes over slaves failed, in part, be cause the federal Indian agents often owned and speculated in slaves themselves and thus were compromised by personal interests. Also, many blacks worked for the Seminoles as influential interpreters and advisers. Even before the acquisition of Florida by the United States in 1821, blacks were involved in white-native conflicts. The combination of blacks and Seminoles was important in the international affairs of the region from the 1810-14 plot to take East Florida from the Spanish by force to the 1816 Negro Fort incident on the Apalachicola River and Andrew Jackson's Florida campaign of 1818.1 After 1821, the prob lems between whites, Seminoles, and black allies of the Seminoles changed from an international issue to an internal one; the Florida Indians could now be dealt with unilaterally by the United States. Settlers coming into Florida found, according to a correspondent

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in Niles Weekly Register, "the finest agricultural district within the limits of the United States." He described the area between the Suwanee and St. Johns rivers as "combining the advantages of a mild and healthy climate, a rich soil, and convenient navigation."2 William P. DuVal, Jackson's successor as territorial governor of Florida, warned Secretary of War John C. Calhoun that "it will be a serious misfor tune to this Territory if the Indians are permitted to occupy this tract of country." DuVal recommended moving the Indians of Florida to the domain of the Creeks, "to whom they properly belong," or to land west of the Mississippi River.3 Writing to Florida Indian agent John R. Bell, Calhoun noted, "The government expects that the Slaves who have run away or been plundered from our Citizens or from Indian tribes within our limits will be given up peaceably by the Seminole Indians when demanded." Calhoun instructed Bell to con vince the Seminoles either to join the Creeks or "to concentrate . in one place and become peaceable and industrious farmers." 4 Governor DuVal, along with Florida planters James Gadsden and Bernard Segui, met with Indian representatives in September 1823 at Moultrie Creek south of St. Augustine. The Seminoles agreed to cede their land in north Florida to the United States and to receive a large tract with recognized boundaries farther south. Part of the negotiations required the listing of Indian towns and a census of their inhabitants. Neamathla, the leader of the Seminole delegation, listed thirty-seven towns with 4,883 natives. He objected, however, accord ing to Gadsden, to specifying "the number of negroes in the nation."5 The Moultrie Creek agreement reserved for the Seminoles the area from the Big Swamp along the Withlacoochee River south to the "main branch of the Charlotte [Peace] river," some fifteen to twenty miles inland from the coasts. The Indians were to receive $5,000 per year for twenty years. Article 7 bound the Indians to be "active and vigilant in preventing the retreating to, or passing through, of the district assigned them, of any absconding slaves, or fugitives from justice" and to deliver all such people to the agent, when they would be compensated for their expenses.6 The U.S. government representatives, in their report accompany ing the treaty, recommended that military posts be established around the contours of Indian country "to embody such a popula-George Klos 129

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tion within prescribed limits, and to conquer their erratic habits . [and to] further induce an early settlement of the country now open to the enterprise of emigrants."7 In giving up their North Florida land, the Indians were relin quishing an area of fertile soil, good rainfall, and temperate climate. Many of the early settlers migrated from elsewhere in the South and, with slaves that they brought with them, established cotton, sugar, and tobacco plantations and farms. Many Piedmont and Tidewater elites moved to Florida and created a new hierarchy in the territory.8 Between 1825 and 1832, 433,751 acres of public land were sold in Florida; some 5 million acres were still available in 1833. The territo rial Legislative Council, in an 1828 resolution to Congress, requested that the price per acre for public land be reduced so as to attract more settlers. The legislators argued it was a national security move to increase population.9 The 1830 census listed 34,730 Floridians, of whom 15,501 were slaves and 844 "free colored."10 The Comte de Castelneau, a French visitor to Florida in the 1830s, observed the local planter as being "accustomed to exercise absolute power over his slaves [;] he cannot endure any opposition to his wishes." Whites of modest means, he said, were "brought up from childhood with the idea that the Indians are the usurpers of the land that belongs to them, and even in times of peace they are always ready to go hunting savages rather than deer hunting. . These men know no other power than physical force, and no other pleasure than carrying out their brutal passions." u Blacks living with the Seminoles became a point of contention for whites because the Seminole system of slavery was not as harsh or rigid as the Anglo-American system; a comparatively lenient system in such close proximity might offer slaves of whites an alternative that their owners could not tolerate. A Seminole was more of a patron than a master; the Seminole slave system was akin to tenant farming. Blacks lived in their own villages near Indian villages and paid a har vest tribute, a percentage of the yield from their fields, to the chief. Blacks, an Indian agent reported, had "horses, cows, and hogs, with which the Indian owner never presumed to meddle."12 In the 1820s, when there were approximately four hundred blacks living with the Seminoles, only some eighty could be identified as fugitive slaves. Jacob Rhett Motte, an army surgeon stationed in 130 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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Florida in the 1830s, noted, "They had none of the servility of our northern blacks, but were constantly offerring their dirty paws with as much hauteur and nonchalance as if they were conferring a vast deal of honor."13 They could "speak English as well as Indian," the trader Horatio Dexter reported, "and feel satisfied with their situa tion. They have the easy unconstrained manner of the Indian but more vivacity, and from their understanding of both languages pos sess considerable influence with their masters."14 Only a few black Seminoles were bilingual, and those who were became influential in Indian councils. Although much has been made of the "equality" of the black Seminoles, it would be more accurate to say that some blacks were more equal than others. Seminole society had blacks of every statusborn free, or the descendants of fugitives, or per haps fugitives themselves. Some were interpreters and advisers of importance, others were warriors and hunters or field hands. Inter marriage with Indians further complicated black status. But even a black of low status among the Seminoles felt it was an improvement over Anglo-American chattel slavery. People living near the Seminoles usually became acquainted with the Indians and their black interpreters through trade. Seminoles visited stores and plantations despite the legal prohibition on leaving the reservation. Blacks often crossed the prescribed boundaries, and some white-owned slaves had spouses and other relatives living in Indian country. John Philip, a middle-aged "chief negro" to King Philip, leader of an Indian band, had a wife living on a St. Johns River plantation. Luis Fatio, owned by Francis Philip Fatio, one of the most prominent planters in East Florida, made his first contact with the Seminoles on the plantation. His older brother ran away to Indian country, and Luis learned one of the Indian languages during his brother's periodic visits to the slave quarters. One day Luis went on a visit to Seminole country and never returned.15 There were others like Luis. Alachua County slaveowners esti mated one hundred runaways among the Seminoles, complaining that the black Seminoles (the planters apparently saw a difference be tween them and runaways) "aided such slaves to select new and more secure places of refuge."16 Owen Marsh, who visited several "Negro Villages" looking for runaways, noted that the number of runaway slaves among the Seminoles could not be determined "from the Cir-George Klos

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Gopher John, Seminole Interpreter. Reprinted from Joshua R. Giddings, The Exiles of Florida (Columbus, Ohio, 1858). Africans living among the Seminoles in Florida adopted Seminole dress and ways of life.

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cumstances of their being protected by the Indian Negroes. . These Indian Negroes are so artfull that it is impossible to gain any Information relating to such property from them."17 Governor DuVal admonished the Seminoles in January 1826 for not returning runaway slaves. You are not to mind what the negroes say; they will lie, and lead you astray, in the hope to escape from their white owners, and that you will give them refuge and hide them. Do your duty and give them up. They care nothing for you, further than to make use of you, to keep out of the hands of their masters. Thus far the negroes have made you their tools, and gained protection, contrary to both justice and the treaty, and at the same time, laugh at you for being deceived by them. Your conduct in this matter is cause of loud, constant, and just complaint on the part of the white people. . Deliver them up, rid your nation of a serious pest, and do what, as honest men, you should not hesi tate to do; then your white brothers will say you have done them justice, like honest, good men. Should the Seminoles refuse, DuVal warned, the army will take the blacks by force, "and in the confusion, many of you may lose your own slaves."18 Tuckose Emathla (John Hicks), a principal spokesman for the Indians, replied, "We do not like the story that our people hide the runaway negroes from their masters. It is not a true talk.... We have never prevented the whites from coming into our country and taking their slaves whenever they could find them and we will not here after oppose their doing so." At another meeting that year, Tuckose Emathla voiced the main Indian complaint regarding slaves: "The white people have got some of our negroes, which we expect they will be made to give up."19 Besides the black communities on Seminole land, other groups of blacks and Indians lived outside the treaty boundaries, and still others left Florida altogether. Owen Marsh, in his investigation of Seminole country, reported that many runaway slaves had departed for the Bahamas and Cuba, and a Darien, Georgia, slaveowner com plained to the secretary of war that his escaped slaves left Florida via "West India wreckers" working the Atlantic coast.20 Two other George Klos 133

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settlements in southwest Florida were described by John Winslett, who was tracking three slaves of a Georgia planter. He was told at Tampa Bay that "it would not be safe to pursue them much farther without force; that a band of desperadoes, runaways, murderers, and thieves (negroes and Indians, a majority runaway slaves)" lived on an island south of Charlotte Harbor. Blacks and Indians who had been there told Winslett of "another settlement of lawless persons (Indians and absconded slaves) on a creek between Manatia [Mana tee] River and Charlotte's Harbor, some miles west of the latter."21 The island community was a haven for some survivors of the Negro Fort on the Apalachicola River, and existed until the war for Semi nole removal.22 The residents cut timber and fished, shipping their goods to Havana, where they were traded for rum and firearms. The Seminoles also traded with Cuban fishermen, and Indian agent Gad Humphreys reported that runaway slaves were shuttled to Havana this way, sometimes bound for freedom and sometimes for sale.23 The legal mechanisms for settling slave disputes between whites and Indians failed. DuVal proposed that the government buy Semi nole slaves, as individual whites were prohibited from slave trading with Indians, but he was told by the superintendent of Indian Affairs that agents should not involve themselves in slave trade with their charges. When whites took slaves from Indians, Florida agents were instructed to use due process to get the slaves back. When Indians held slaves claimed by whites, the burden of proof was on the whites. In accordance with the Moultrie Creek treaty, the Seminoles did re turn some runaway slaves, and in other cases, Humphreys explained to the representative of a Georgia slaveowner, they welcomed inves tigation "by a competent tribunal."24 For the most part, however, the Seminoles refused to surrender the slaves in question before the trial. "Their own negroes that have been taken from them are held by white people who refuse to dilliver them up," DuVal told the super intendent of Indian Affairs. "I have felt asshamed while urgeing the Indians to surrender the property they hold, that I had not power to obtain for them their own rights and property held by our citizens To tell one of these people that he must go to law for his property in our courts with a white man is only adding insult to injury."25 Indians resisted surrendering slaves to public (white) custody as a 134 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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precondition for resolving disputes because they knew they had no rights in court. "The Indian, conscious of his rights, and knowing that he paid the money, though incapable of showing the papers exe cuted under forms of law, as he had received none, and relying upon the honesty of the white man, protested most earnestly against these demands, and resolutely expressed a determination to resist all at tempts thus to wrest from him his rightfully acquired property," ex plained John T. Sprague in his history of the Second Seminole War. "Deprived as they were of a voice in the halls of justice, the surrender of the negro at once dispossessed them, without the least prospect of ever getting him returned." The commander of the army post at Tampa Bay, Colonel George M. Brooke, observed in 1828 that "so many claims are now made on them, that they begin to believe that it is the determination of the United States to take them all. This idea is strengthened by the conversations of many of the whites, and which they have heard."26 Whites, however, saw it differently. Samuel Cook, Abraham Bel lamy, and other planters complained that "whilst the Law furnishes to the Indians ample means of redress for the aggressions of Whitemen, we are Constrained to look with patience, whilst they possess and enjoy the property most justly and rightfully Ours." They also objected to being prevented from taking from Indian country "even those negroes that are unclaimed and unpossessed by the Indians."27 Cook also voiced another frontier slaveowner's complaint, that slaves purchased from the Seminoles often slipped back to Indian coun try. DuVal reported to McKenney that "the persons who have been most clamorous about their claims on the Indians and their prop erty are those who have cheated them, under false reports, of their slaves, who have since gone back to the Indians."28 Alfred Beckley, an army lieutenant stationed in Florida in 1825, noted that planters sought any opportunity to use force against the Seminoles "so that the whites might possess themselves of many valuable negroes."29 DuVal favored withholding treaty annuities until the Indians re turned runaway slaves, and the Indian Office did so in 1828 but later reversed the policy and forbade it in the future. Since some white claims were indisputable, DuVal said, the slave in question ought to be given by the Indians to the agent, or the owner "ought to receive George Klos

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Billy Bowlegs and Chiefs of the Seminole Indians: Billy Bowlegs, Chocote Tustenuggee, Abram [sic], John Jumper, Fasatchee Emanthla, Sarparkee Yohola, on a state visit to Washington, D.C., in 1826. Abraham, fourth from the left, escaped from slavery and became an adviser to Chief Micanopy. He helped negotiate the treaties of Paynes Landing and Fort Gibson and urged the Seminoles to resist deportation to the Indian Territory. He was eventually exiled with them in 1839. Courtesy of the Florida State Archives. the full value of him from the nation."30 Local slaveowners, however, advocated "adequate military force" to "recover pilfered property" from the Seminoles.31 If, in the critical role of the agents as mediators between Indians and frontier whites, "the success of the work depended upon the character of the man," then the agents assigned to the Seminoles ex acerbated rather than allayed conflict.32 Ample evidence shows that, contrary to orders, Gad Humphreys engaged in slave trade with his charges, and planters accused him of dragging his feet on their com plaints about runaways. In one case, a woman in St. Marys, Georgia, claimed that a slave and the slave's children were living with the Seminoles. A man dispatched to retrieve them found it "next to an impossibility" to get them back due to the Seminoles' "natural re luctance to give it up and the wish of their agent to speculate."33 136 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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"The negroes this man is after are ours, and the white people know it is so/' said the subchief Jumper to Humphreys.34 When Humphreys reported the Seminoles' determination not to allow the contested slaves out of their possession, interested parties petitioned Washing ton for an investigation, charging Humphreys with colluding with a local planter to prevent transfer of the slaves, in the expectation that the claim would be abandoned with the passage of time, as expenses mounted.35 McKenney also received accusations that Humphreys had worked fugitive slaves on his own land for several months before returning them to their owners. Secretary of War Peter B. Porter informed President John Quincy Adams of allegations that Humphreys had "connived with the Indians in the concealment of runaway slaves, and in that way affected purchases of them himself, at reduced prices."36 Humphreys explained to Alex Adair, the investigator of the alle gations, that he bought slaves from Indians so that claimants could prove ownership in court, an impossibility as long as the slaves were in Indian possession.37 Adair concluded that while Humphreys in fact probably had billed the government for sugar kettles installed on his land, the other charges were difficult to prove since "those who had been most clamorous appeared most disposed to evade the inquiry." Humphreys apparently had made reasonable settlements with his accusers when he learned that he was to be investigated. Zephaniah Kingsley, who claimed that Humphreys had held one of his slaves for over a year, "stated he had settled his business with the Agent in his own way. .. His property had been surrendered to him some months back and he cared no more about it."38 An Alachua County resident reported to Governor DuVal that Humphreys possessed blacks belonging to Indians, and that he bought Indian cattle with IOUs he later refused to honor. Hum phreys was a liability, McKenney noted, because those opposing him in Florida "make his services in that quarter of but little, if any, use to the Government, whilst his dealing in slaves is in direct violation of an express order forbidding it." Both Governor DuVal and the territory's Congressional Delegate Joseph White wanted Humphreys replaced, and he was dismissed in March 1830.39 Humphreys's slave problems, however, continued, as DuVal had George Klos 137

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received complaints from Indians that Humphreys held their slaves. Humphreys's replacement, John Phagan, attempted to return the slaves, but Humphreys refused to release them unless Phagan was willing to purchase them.40 In another case, stemming from his role as Indian agent, Humphreys sought government assistance in re covering two black men claimed by an Indian woman named Culekeechowa. She had inherited from her mother a slave named Caty, who later bore four children. Horatio Dexter, a trader, persuaded Culekeechowa's brother and Caty's husband, to sell Caty and her two daughters and two sons in exchange for whiskey. Humphreys, as agent, who had agreed to help the Indian woman, went to St. Augustine, where Dexter was offering the slaves for sale. Humphreys main tained that he had to buy them to prevent their sale to a Charleston buyer. But then, instead of returning them to Culekeechowa, he kept the slaves for himself. When the boys grew older and became aware of what had happened, they left for Seminole country in 1835.41 Slave disputes between Seminoles and whites frequently went un resolved because the interpreters in these negotiations were some times former slaves themselves. DuVal observed that the blacks were "much more hostile to the white people than their masters," and were "constantly counteracting" advice to the Indians. In several in stances, he said, chiefs had agreed to a white demand in council but later were talked out of compliance by their black advisers.42 The problem, as Humphreys saw it in 1827, was that "the negroes of the Seminole Indians are wholly independent, or at least regardless of the authority of their masters; and are Slaves but in name." Indi ans considered blacks "rather as fellow Sufferers and companions in misery than as inferiors," Humphreys wrote, and the "great influ ence the Slaves possess over their masters" enabled them to "artfully represent" whites as hostile to people of color.43 The first step in moving the Seminoles out of Florida, DuVal told the commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1834, "must be the breaking up of the runaway slaves and outlaw Indians"44 When Andrew Jackson was elected president, public opinion in the South was demanding stricter control over Indians. Whites wanted land, of course, but they also saw Indians as possible allies of foreign powers (as in the War of 1812), and the presence of fugitive slaves among them was viewed as a threat to internal security. Jackson 138 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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Ben Bruno, Harper's Weekly, June 12, 1858. Like Abraham, Bruno served as interpreter and adviser to the Seminoles. He was a confi dant of Chief Billy Bowlegs. Courtesy of the Florida State Archives.

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urged Indian removal legislation in his December 1829 annual mes sage to Congress, and he tried to sooth opposition by assuring that removal would be voluntary and peaceful. In May 1830, Congress appropriated $500,000 for the negotiation of removal treaties. The territory north of Texas and west of Arkansas that was designated for resettlement was considered at the time the only available location where the Indians would not be in the way of white expansion.45 Floridians had been voicing removal sentiment since early in the territorial period.46 As indicated in a message to Congress, the main reason for ousting the Seminoles from Florida was unchanged through the years: "A most weighty objection" to the presence of Indians in the territory was "that absconding slaves find ready secu rity among the Indians and such aid is amply sufficient to enable them successfully to elude the best efforts by their masters to re cover them."47 Territorial government wholeheartedly supported the white slave interests. The Legislative Council requested removal in July 1827, and Acting Governor James Westcott asked the council to strengthen the militia because "we have amongst us two classes who may pos sibly at some future period, be incited to hostility, and... it behooves us always to be prepared." He believed the only humane solution was to move the Indians away from whites, without moving their slaves.48 An 1826 Florida law to regulate Indian trade in general imposed the death penalty on anyone who "shall inveigle, steal, or carry away" any slave or "hire, aid, or counsel" anyone to do so. That this sec tionwhich does not mention Indiansappears in a bill relating to Indian trade shows slaveowners' concern over the black-Indian con nection. In 1832, the territory prohibited "Indian negroes, bond or free," from traveling outside the Indian boundaries. Also, in light of the Gad Humphreys episodes, the council set limits to the amount of the reward Indian agents could collect for capturing runaway slaves, established accounting requirements in slave cases, and required agents to advertise fugitive slaves in their custody.49 In January 1832 Secretary of War Lewis Cass instructed James Gadsden, Florida planter and Jackson supporter, to arrange a treaty with the Seminoles providing for their removal west to the new Creek country, with all annuities in the West to be paid through the Creeks.50 Gadsden met with the Seminole leaders at Paynes Landing 140 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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on the Ocklawaha River. Among the first orders of business was selec tion of interpreters satisfactory to the Seminoles. Gadsden brought along Stephen Richards for that purpose, while the Seminoles chose Abraham, "a faithful domestic of Micanope, the Head Chief. In addition the interpreter of the agent, Cudjo, was present."51 As ad visers and interpreters in Indian-white negotiations, these two men were perhaps the most influential blacks in Florida at the time. Abraham was regarded as more than an interpreter; he was fre quently called a "chief Negro" in official dispatches, and army sur geon Jacob Rhett Motte described him as "a perfect Tallyrand of the savage court."52 How he arrived among the Seminoles is speculative, but judging by his manners and knowledge of English, he may have been an Englishman's house servant prior to the U.S. acquisi tion of Florida. His wife was Bowleg's half-black widow, by whom he fathered three or four children.53 Abraham's influence is usually de scribed in comparison to that of his "master" or patron, Micanopy, "a large, fat man, rather obtuse in intellect, but kind to his people and his slaves."54 Micanopy was described by McCall as "rather too indolent to rule harshly"; he tended to leave official business to what he called his "sense-bearers," one of whom was Abraham.55 Despite the prevailing opinion of Micanopy, no one underestimated Abra ham. John Lee Williams, one of the first Florida historians and a figure in territorial politics, said Abraham had "as much influence in the nation as any other man. With an appearance of great mod esty, he is ambitious, avaricious, and withal very intelligent."56 Thin and over six feet tall with a broad, square face and a thin moustache, Abraham was "plausible, pliant, and deceitful," according to Mayer Cohen, who also noted, "and, under an exterior of profound meekness, [he] cloaks deep, dark, and bloody purposes. He has at once the crouch and the spring of the panther."57 Captain John C. Casey, who spent much time with Abraham during the war and knew him better than most whites, described him as having "a slight inclina tion forward like a Frenchman of the old school. His countenance is one of great cunning and penetration. He always smiles, and his words flow like oil. His conversation is soft and low, but very dis tinct, with a most genteel emphasis."58 Cudjo was described as a "regular interpreter at the Seminole agency," although it is not known when his relationship with the George Klos 141

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government began. As late as 1822 he was "one of the principal characters" of a black Seminole town in the Big Swamp area, according to William Simmons, who spent a night in his house.59 One Indian agent complained of his "very imperfect knowledge of the English lan guage," yet John Bemrose, a soldier in Florida in the 1830s, described his speech as "the common negro jargon of the plantation."60 Bem rose mentioned that partial paralysis afflicted Cudjo, while another contemporary caustically remarked on the "little, limping figure of Cudjoe . with his cunning, squinting eyes; and his hands folded across his lap, in seemingly meek attention to the scene around him." Of all the blacks to figure prominently in Seminole removal and the ensuing war, Cudjo was the first to side with the government. Porter attributes this to "his physical deficiency of partial paralysis [that] predisposed him toward association with those who could give him the medical attention and comforts which his condition called for and which would have been inaccessible among the hostile Indi ans and Negroes."61 By the time of the meeting at Paynes Landing, Cudjo was drawing a salary and rations from the Indian agency at Fort King and probably living there as well. Gadsden's main obstacles to a successful conclusion of the treaty negotiations were slave claims and the idea that the Seminoles should combine with the Creeks. He told the assemblage that as bad as emi gration sounded to them, their situation would only be worse under local jurisdiction, which would be their fate if they refused to sell their land. He offered to include in the treaty an article earmark ing $7,000, over and above the main payment for relinquishing their land, for the government to settle property claims against them. The sum "will probably cover all demands which can be satisfactorily proved," Gadsden said. "Many claims are for negroes. . The Indi ans allege that the depredations were mutual, that they suffered in the same degree, and that most of the property claimed was taken as reprisal for property of equal value lost by them."62 Finally, Gadsden conferred privately with Abraham and Cudjo and added $400 to the Seminole payment specifically for the two black men. It was "in tended to be a bribe," recalled one disgusted army captain; Gadsden "could not have got the treaty through if he had not bribed the negro interpreter."63 The Seminoles believed they had forestalled giving up their land. 142 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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All they had agreed to, they thought, was to send a delegation to the Indian territory to examine the proposed new land. The group would report back to the larger body of Seminoles, and then the final deci sion would be made. This interpretation was also held at the highest levels of the federal government. The secretary of war, in his annual report to the president, said the treaty was "not obligatory on [the Indians'] part" until a group examined the land "and until the tribe, upon their report, shall have signified their desire" to move. "When they return, the determination of the tribe will be made known to the government."64 Seven Seminoles, Abraham, and agent John Phagan went to the proposed new Seminole land during the winter of 1832-33. At Fort Gibson on the Arkansas River, Phagan and three other federal agents prepared a document for the group's signatures. It stated that the group was satisfied with the country to be assigned to the Seminoles, that they would live within the Creek nation but have a separate des ignated area, and that they would become "a constituent part of the Creek nation."65 The Seminoles balked. They had no authority to sign anything, and it is reasonable to assume that Oklahoma in the winter was not very appealing to natives of Florida. According to one version, Phagan threatened to refuse to guide them home until they signed. Jumper, Holata Emathla, and Coi Hadjo later claimed never to have signed, but they probably said that to protect them selves from Seminoles violently opposed to removal. Abraham's part at Fort Gibson went unrecorded and is unclear, but obviously a com bination of trickery and duress was employed to hasten emigration. Hitchcock, who later had to fight in the resulting war, called the Seminole treaty process "a fraud upon the Indians."66 When the group returned and reported to the Seminole coun cil what they had seen, Micanopy informed agent Wiley Thompson that the Seminoles had decided to decline the offer. Thompson told him that the delegation had signed away Florida and to prepare his people for emigration. Abraham brought the chief's answer the next day. "The old man says today the same he said yesterday, 'the nation decided in council to decline the offer.'" Captain McCall, with sev eral years service in Florida, knew the interpreter to be "crafty and artful in the extreme" and thus did not doubt that he had "as usual, much to do in keeping the chief, who was of a vacillating character, George Klos

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steady in his purpose."67 Abraham, however, was not the only in fluence on Micanopy; "not an Indian would have consented to the relinquishment of their country" had the Paynes Landing agreement worked the way they thought it would, according to Sprague. The Seminoles who had signed at Fort Gibson were, in fact, "ridiculed and upbraided by all classes, male and female, for being circum vented by the whites." Resistance sentiment was so strong that the Fort Gibson signatories feared for their lives.68 Aside from the overt fraudulence of the recent treaties, the two major obstacles to Seminole removal remained their opposition to living with the Creeks and their rejection of the designs of others on their slaves. The first problem was destined to continue as a part of the removal treaties; the second was supposedly settled by the stipulation that the United States settle property claims against the Seminoles. Nevertheless, plans were still afoot to keep the Seminoles' blacks in Florida as the Indians were moved out. The Seminoles gradually separated themselves from the Creek Confederacy, a process virtually complete by the Red Stick War, but the Creeks often included the Seminoles in their treaties even though no Seminoles were signatories.69 The Seminoles, in fact, adamantly denied the Creeks' right to do so. These treaties usually had articles indemnifying American citizens for slaves taken by Indians as part of the Creek annuity; thus the Creeks claimed black Seminoles as their own, and their demands for the "return" of slaves further compli cated Indian removal. Though the Seminoles recognized a political separation between themselves and the Creeks, clan ties bridged the two groups.70 Even Seminoles who favored emigration objected to uniting with the Creeks. The Creeks wanted, according to Lieutenant Woodbourne Potter, to bring the Seminoles into their nation "evidently with a view to dispossess the Seminoles, in the easiest manner, of their large negro property, to which the former had unsuccessfully urged a claim."71 Colonel Duncan Clinch, leader of the U.S. forces in the 1816 Negro Fort battle and by the 1830s owner of 3,000 acres in Alachua County, explained that the Seminoles feared for their property because the Creeks greatly outnumbered them. They also believed they would have no justice in the West if there were no sepa rate agent to attend to Seminole interests. However, the authorities 144 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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in Washington, ignoring the advice of those at the scene, continued to plan for combining the Creeks and Seminoles on the same land, under one agency.72 The Seminoles argued that the slave claims made by the Creeks were covered by the sixth article of the Paynes Land ing treaty, in which the United States agreed to pay for such claims. "As it would be difficult, not to say impossible, to prove that the negroes claimed by the Creeks, now in the possession of the Semi nole Indians, are the identical negroes, or their descendants. ... I cannot conceive that the Creeks can be supposed to have a fair claim to them," said agent Thompson.73 The Creeks were but one group asserting the right to enslave black Seminoles. After President Jackson agreed with his Florida support ers that it might be a good idea for the government to permit the selling of the black Seminoles to whites, Thompson expressed his fear to the acting secretary of war that such a policy would "bring into the nation a crowd of 'speculators,' some of whom might re sort to the use of improper means to effect their object, and thereby greatly embarrass our operations."74 Governor Richard Keith Call, who had served under Jackson in the Florida campaign of 1818, initiated the plan to sell the blacks. "The negroes have a great influence over the Indians; they are better agriculturalists and inferior huntsmen to the Indians, and are vio lently opposed to leaving the country," he explained to Jackson. "If the Indians are permitted to convert them into specie, one great ob stacle in the way of removal may be overcome." Carey A. Harris, head of the Office of Indian Affairs, explained to Thompson that such a move would rid the Seminoles of one certain point of conflict in the West "which . would excite the cupidity of the Creeks." Harris believed, furthermore, that it would not be an inhumane act as "it is not to be presumed the condition of these slaves would be worse than that of others in the same section of the country."75 To Thompson, a policy of allowing Seminole slave sales was yet one more problem blocking peaceful removal. He had to counteract rumors spread by "malcontent Indians" that he had his own designs on the blacks, "and the moment I am called upon to meet this new difficulty, a party of whites arrives at the agency with what they consider a per mission from the War Department to purchase slaves from the Indians." Should this continue, he warned, "it is reasonable to suppose George Klos

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that the negroes would en masse unite with the malcontent Indians." Instead, he proposed that the government persuade the blacks "to exert their known influence" on behalf of removal by assuring the security of their existing relations with the Indians and not "classing them with skins and furs." In the end, Thompson was permitted to deny any trader entry to Seminole country by refusing him a license, and Thompson could issue licenses at his own discretion.76 Army officers in Florida agreed with Thompson that black oppo sition to being sold to whites would bring energy to the Semi nole resistance, as blacks did not see themselves benefiting under white control. The commander of U.S. troops in Florida, Lieutenant Colonel A, C. W. Fanning, worried that "the cupidity of our own citizens" might ruin removal plans because the blacks, "who are bold, active, and armed will sacrifice some of them to their rage."77 When Thompson asked chiefs friendly to removal to conduct a preremoval census of their people, including slaves, blacks became alarmed that the compilation of their names and numbers was the first step in the effort to put them under white control. At the same time, Thompson said, whites came to the agency with the War Department's affirma tive response to Call's inquiry about Seminole slaves.78 The majority of Indians opposed emigration, regardless of the agreement made by a handful of chiefs. As General Thomas S. Jesup explained in the midst of the war, "Even when a large portion of the heads of families should assent to a measure, those who dis sented did not consider themselves bound to submit to or adopt it." Some headmen, including Jumper, Coi Hadjo, Charley Emathla, and Holata Emathla, knew that U.S. power made resistance futile and thus privately favored emigration, but their people so opposed it that they threatened the lives of any Indians who complied with the removal plan. Osceola emerged as a leader of the militant resistance and, though not a hereditary Seminole leader, he collected followers who agreed with what he said. His ascent to leadership also owed as much to action as talk; Thompson jailed Osceola briefly for threat ening him with a knife, and in 1835, a month before the onset of the Second Seminole War, Osceola killed Charley Emathla for prepar ing for removal regardless of the sentiment of the people.79 Thompson tried to explain to the Seminoles how much worse their condition would be if they remained in Florida without federal 146 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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protection. He also offered assurances that the government would protect their property from the Creeks. Micanopy held firm on the twenty-year term of the Moultrie Creek treaty, which would not ex pire for nine more years. Other Indian speakers complained that the Paynes Landing Treaty had not been explained to them correctly, that they had meant only to evaluate the western land, which had turned out to be no good. Nothing was resolved at this October 1834 meeting, and Thompson noticed that the Indians, "after they had received their annuity, purchased an unusually large quantity of powder and lead."80 Duncan Clinch, who met with the Seminoles in April 1835, got no further than had Thompson. Jumper proceeded to make a lively two-hour speech, and Bemrose recorded "Cudjo's short and abrupt elucidation of doubtless a noble harangue. . 'When he look upon the White man's warriors, he sorry to injure them, but he cannot fear them, he had fought them before, he will do so again, if his people say fight.'... When asked to elucidate more fully the speaker's mean ing, it tended only to his imperfect grunt of fihe say he no go, dat all he say.'" Clinch, exasperated, finally told the council if they did not emigrate voluntarily, they would be removed by force. A number of chiefs agreed, but not Micanopy or Jumper.81 Abraham, who had interpreted the removal treaties, was now counseling resistance, and Thompson believed the cause lay in the actions of Thompson's predecessor at the Seminole agency, John Phagan.82 Abraham fumed that he had never been paid, as Thomp son explained: "He has (in my possession) Major Phagan's certificate that he is entitled for his service to $280 for which Major Phagan, on the presentation of Abraham's receipt at the Department received credit. Abraham says he never gave a receipt; that he has been im posed upon; and he is consequently more indifferent upon the sub ject of emigration than I think he would otherwise have been. I have little doubt that a few hundred dollars would make him zealous and active." The money, Thompson said, should be given only "on the production of the effect desired."83 Secretary of War Cass declined this opportunity to influence a useful ally. "Major Phagan having filed here the proper receipt for Abraham for his pay as interpreter, and received credit for the amount, it would be unsafe and inconsistent with the rules of the De-George Klos

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"Aunt Jane" and her charge, Sarah Walker Palmer, ca. 1850s. Jane, nurse maid for the children of Dr. J.D. Palmer of Fernandina, was a survivor of the Seminole attack on Indian Key during the Second Seminole War. Courtesy of the Florida State Archives. partment to set aside the receipt, and pay the claim now presented," he told Thompson.84 While the blacks, especially the influential ones, sided with the re sistance, the murder of Charley Emathla by Osceola frightened those Indians inclined to cooperate with removal, and there was sudden abandonment of the Seminole communities. Clinch and Thompson perceived that trouble was imminent. The Florida frontier might 148 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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Abraham, adviser to Chief Micanopy, ca. 1830s. From Joshua R. Giddings, The Exiles of Florida (Columbus, Ohio, 1858). be destroyed, Clinch told the adjudant general of the army, "by a combination of the Indians, Indian Negroes and the Negroes on the plantations." Reinforcements arrived in December, and a plan was made to move by force on the Seminole country after New Year's Day to round up the Indians for emigration.85 The eruption of hostilities in the last week of 1835 owed much to the alliance of blacks with the Seminoles. Luis Pacheco, the former slave of the Fatio family who had subsequently lived in Indian country, George Klos 149

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was the guide for Major Francis L. Dade's fateful encounter with the Seminole warriors who were determined to resist removal. Whether or not he colluded with the attackers, as he denied to his death, other blacks assisted the warriors who ambushed Dade's troops. Major F. S. Belton published in the Niles Register his account of the battle, in which he stated that "a negro . named Harry, controls the Pea Creek band of about a hundred warriors, forty miles southeast of [Fort Brooke] . who keep this post constantly observed, and com municate with the Mickasukians at Wythlacoochee."86 At the same time that Dade's force was wiped out, blacks and Indians assaulted plantations near St. Augustine, and approximately three hundred slaves joined them. One leader of the raids, John Caesar, was a black Seminole with family connections on one plan tation. Another was John Philip, who lived with King Philip and had a wife on Benjamin Heriot's sugar plantation.87 Thus began the longest and most expensive Indian war the U.S. government was to wage. Ultimately the war for removal could not be resolved without a guarantee by Major General Thomas Jesup that blacks would be permitted to go to the West with the Seminoles rather than being sold into slavery. Obviously, the events leading up to the war were distinctly influenced by blacks sympathetic to Semi nole resistance. Notes 1. Kenneth W. Porter wrote extensively on blacks and Seminoles. His Negro on the American Frontier (New York: Arno Press, 1971) is a compila tion of articles first published in Florida Historical Quarterly and Journal of Negro History, among others. Rembert W. Patrick, Florida Fiasco (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954), covers the East Florida campaign of 1811-1813, and includes a chapter on the blacks living with the Seminoles of Alachua. Mark F. Boyd, "Events at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River, 1808-1818," Florida Historical Quarterly 16 (October 1937): 55-96, and John D. Milligan, "Slave Rebelliousness and the Florida Maroon/' Prologue 6 (Spring 1974): 4-18, descriptively cover the Negro Fort incident. 2. Niles Weekly Register 21 (September 29,1821): 69. 3. William DuVal to John C. Calhoun, September 22, 1822, in Territorial Papers of the United States, ed. Clarence E. Carter, 27 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1934-69), 22:533-34 (hereafter cited as Territorial Papers). 150 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

60; and Harry A. Kersey, Jr., "The Seminole Negroes of Andros Island Revisited: Some New Pieces to an Old Puzzle," Florida Anthropologist 34 (December 1981): 169-76. 21. Statement of John Winslett, sworn to by Augustus Steele, Jr., Decem ber 21,1833, OIA-LR roll 290. 22. James Forbes and James Innerarity, searching for slaves known to have been at Negro Fort, got as far as Tampa Bay, where they were informed that the runaways were in the Charlotte Harbor area. William Coker and Thomas Watson, Indian Traders of the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands (Pensacola: University of West Florida Press, 1986), 309. 23. DuVal to Calhoun, September 23,1823, Territorial Papers 22, 744; Gad Humphreys to Calhoun, January 31,1826, Territorial Papers 23, 203; James W Covington, "Life at Fort Brooke, 1824-1836," Florida Historical Quarterly 36 (April 1958): 325-26. 24. Humphreys to Horatio Lowe, September 17,1828, OIA-LR roll 800. 25. DuVal to McKenney, March 20, 1826, Territorial Papers 23, 483; McKenney to DuVal, May 8, 1826, American State Papers-Indian Affairs 2:698; Mark F. Boyd, Florida Aflame (Tallahassee: Florida Board of Parks and Historic Memorials, 1951), 36. 26. John T. Sprague, Origin, Progress, and Conclusion of the Florida War (New York: Appleton, 1848), 34, 43, 5253. 27. Territorial Papers 22:763. 28. Territorial Papers 23:473, 483. 29. "Memoir of a West Pointer in Florida," ed. Cecil D. Eby, Jr., Florida Historical Quarterly 41 (October 1962): 163. 30. Territorial Papers 24:452; Boyd, Florida Aflame, 42; DuVal to Lewis Cass, May 26,1832, OIA-LR roll 288. 31. Memorial to the President by Inhabitants of St. Johns County, March 6, 1826, Territorial Papers 23:462-63. Three members of the Fatio family signed the memorial. 32. Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 56. 33. James Dean to Archibald Clark, September 20,1828, OIA-LR roll 800. 34. Sprague, Origin, Progress, and Conclusion, 51. The Indians maintained, and white witnesses later confirmed, that the slave woman in question had been sold to an Indian by the claimant's father twenty years earlier. 35. Archibald Clark to McKenney, October 20,1828, OIA-LR roll 800. 36. McKenney to Peter Porter, November 1,1828, Territorial Papers 24:95-97; Porter to John Quincy Adams, December 6,1828, OIA-LR roll 800. 37. Humphreys to Alex Adair, April 27,1829, OIA-LR roll 800. 38. Adair to John Eaton, April 24,1829, OIA-LR roll 800. 152 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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39Marsh to DuVal, May 29, 1829, Territorial Papers 24:234; McKenney to Porter, November 1,1828, Territorial Papers 24:95-97. 40. DuVal to Phagan, October 9,1830; Phagan to Lewis Cass, February 6, 1832, OIA-LR roll 800. The blacks in this case were claimed by an Indian woman, Nelly Factor, and by two whites named Floyd and Garey. DuVal told Phagan to seize the slaves and deliver them to Floyd and Garey. DuVal to Phagan, February 7,1832, ibid. 41. Wiley Thompson to Cass, July 19,1835, American State Papers-Military Affairs 6:460; a copy of the bill of sale is in the Florida Negro Collection of the Florida Historical Society Archives, University of South Florida Library, Tampa. Later, Caty and one of her daughters also ran away, as Humphreys listed them (and the sons) as slaves "taken" by the Indians in the war. Caty, one son, and one daughter are listed in 1838 muster rolls of captured blacks en route to Indian Territory. 42. If the Seminoles were to be taken out of Florida and sent west, DuVal recommended, "The Government ought not to admit negros to go with them. ... I am convinced the sooner they dispose of them the better." DuVal to McKenney, January 12, 1826, Territorial Papers 23:414; DuVal to McKenney, March 2,1826, ibid., 454. 43. Humphreys to Acting Governor William McCarty, September 6,1827, ibid., 911. 44. DuVal to Elbert Herring, January 26, 1834, House Misc. Doc. 271, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., 18. Emphasis in original. 45. Ronald N. Satz, American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975)3 3-11; Prucha, Formative Years, 225-38. 46. Joseph Hernandez to Thomas Metcalfe (Chairman, House Com mittee on Indian Affairs), February 19, 1823, American State Papers-Indian Affairs 2:410. Hernandez, like many slaveowning petitioners to the govern ment from Florida, was a naturalized U.S. citizen who had been living in Florida since the Spanish period. 47. Memorial to Congress by Inhabitants of the Territory, March 26, 1832, Territorial Papers 24:679. 48. Territorial Papers 23:897; St. Augustine Florida Herald January 26,1832. 49. Acts of the Legislative Council, 5th Sess. (1827), 79-81; Acts, 6th Sess. (1828), 104-107; Florida Herald, July 1,1830, February 2,1832. 50. American State Papers-Military Affairs 6:472. 51. James Gadsden to Cass, November 1,1834, OIA-LR roll 806. 52. Woodbourne Potter, The War in Florida (Baltimore: Lewis and Cole man, 1836; facsimile ed., Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966), 9; Motte, Journey, 210. 53. Porter, Negro on the Frontier, 296-305. George Klos 153

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54John Lee Williams, Territory of Florida (New York: A. T. Goodrich, 1837; facsimile ed., Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962), 214. 55. George A. McCall, Letters from the Frontiers (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1868), 146. 56. Williams, Territory oj'Florida, 214. 57. Mayer M. Cohen, Notices of Florida and the Campaigns (Charleston, 1836; facsimile ed., Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1964), 239. 58. Casey quoted in Charles H. Coe, Red Patriots (Cincinnati, 1898), 46. 59. William Simmons, Notices of East Florida (Charleston: A. E. Miller, 1822; facsimile ed., Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1973), 41. 60. Thompson to Elbert Herring, October 28, 1834, House Misc. Doc. 271, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., 154; Lt. Joseph W. Harris to Cass, October 12, 1835, ibid., 217; John Bemrose, Reminiscences of the Second Seminole War, ed. John K. Mahon (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966), 17. 61. Kenneth W. Porter, "Negro Guides and Interpreters in the Early Stages of the Seminole War," Journal of Negro History 35 (April 1950): I75> 177. 62. Potter, War in Florida, 31-32. 63. Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Fifty Years in Camp and Field (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's, 1909), 79; John K. Mahon, "Two Seminole Treaties: Paynes Landing, 1832, and Fort Gibson, 1833," Florida Historical Quarterly 41 (July 1962): 1-11; Paynes Landing Treaty printed in full in Indian Affairs 2:344-45. 64. Niles Weekly Register 43 (January 26,1833): 367. 65. Fort Gibson treaty printed in Indian Affairs 2:394-95. 66. Mahon, "Two Treaties," 11-21; Hitchcock, Fifty Years, 80,122; Grant Foreman, Indian Removal (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1932), 322. 67. McCall, Letters, 301-302. 68. Sprague, Origin, Progress, and Conclusion, 79. 69. The treaty the Creeks made in New York in 1790 and the Indian Springs Treaty of 1821 are two examples. 70. Gadsden warned Gad Humphreys that "disaffected" Creeks were prone to move to the Seminoles "whenever their irregularities earned them to chastizement." Gadsden to Humphreys, November 11,1827, OIA-LR roll 806. Creeks unwilling to move West, he said, will seek refuge in Florida, and the letters of the Office of Indian Affairs during the war and the diary of Major General Thomas Jesup (in the State Archives of Florida) show that many did indeed seek their escape in Florida. Cases also exist of Florida Indianssuch as the chief Neamathlamoving to Creek country in Alabama to forestall removal. 71. Potter, War in Florida, 43. 154 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821-1835

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72. Boyd, Florida Aflame, 52; Duncan Clinch to Cass, August 24, 1835, House Misc. Doc. 271, 24th Cong., ist Sess., 104; Acting Secretary of War C.A. Harris to Thompson, May 20, 1835, OIA-LR roll 806; RembertW. Patrick, Aristocrat in Uniform: General Duncan L. Clinch (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1963), 61. 73. Potter, War in Florida, 41; Thompson to DuVal, January 1, 1834, American State PapersMilitary Affairs 61454. 74. Thompson to Harris, June 17, 1835, American State Papers-Military Affairs 6:471. 75. Potter, War in Florida, 46-49; Harris to Thompson, May 22, 1835, OIA-LR roll 806. 76. Thompson to Cass, April 27,1835, House Misc. Doc. 271,24th Cong., ist Sess., 183-84; Harris to Thompson, July 11,1835, OIA-LR roll 806. 77. Alexander C. W. Fanning to Adjutant General, April 29,1835, Territorial Papers 25 :i33. 78. Potter, War in Florida, 45-46; Thompson to Harris, June 17, 1835, OIA-LR roll 800. 79. Boyd, Florida Aflame, 47-56; Williams, Territory of Florida, 216; Thomas S. Jesup to Secretary of War Joel Poinsett, October 17,1837, American State Papers-Military Affairs 7:886. 80. Thompson to Herring, October 28,1834, House Misc. Doc. 271, 24th Cong., ist Sess., 54-65. 81. Bemrose, Reminiscences, 17-24; American State Papers-Military Affairs 6:75. 82. Phagan had been fired in 1833 when a Treasury Department comp troller found in Phagan's accounts twelve invoices that had been altered by $397.50 over the true amount, with Phagan paying the contractor the true amount and then pocketing the remainder. J. B. Thornton to Cass, August 29, 1833, OIA-LR roll 800. A year previously, Phagan had found himself in trouble for openly campaigning against Joseph White in the dele gate election, conducting card games in the office, and hiring his own slave at the agency smithy at government expense. Phagan to Cass, February 6, 1832, OIA-LR roll 800. 83. Thompson to George Gibson (Commissary General of Subsistence), September 21,1835, House Misc. Doc. 271, 24th Cong., ist Sess., 214. 84. Cass to Thompson, October 28,1835, ibid., 227. The Paynes Landing treaty specifically stated that Abraham and Cudjo were "to be paid on their arrival in the country they consent to remove to"; thus Phagan had no busi ness invoicing the government for Abraham's payment while the Seminoles were still in Florida. Cudjo also had been victimized when Phagan sent to Washington a bill for $480 (although Cudjo was due only $180), then paid the interpreter nothing. Cudjo complained that in three years with Phagan George Klos 155

O 7 Freedom Was as Close as the River African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida Daniel L. Schafer ^|^H OLLOWING THE Federal occupation of northeast J^m Florida in March and April of 1862, slaveowners in the re gion began complaining of slave runaways. Although Union forces stayed only briefly in Jacksonville during this first of four occu pations, navy gunboats remained on station at the mouth of the St. Johns River and regularly patrolled upriver as far as Lake George. African Americans in the region immediately identified the gunboats as a path to freedom. Waving white flags from shore, paddling canoes and poling rafts out into the currents, slaves and free blacks alike hailed the vessels and embarked on journeys to liberty. For black Floridians, freedom became as close as the St. Johns River.1 This chapter examines slaves who escaped from bondage in north east Florida during the Civil War, particularly those who enlisted in Federal regiments and returned to Florida to fight for Union. Also discussed is the influence of slave runaways on Confederate and Union activities in the region. Evidence is drawn from contemporary newspapers, personal correspondence and diaries, census data and plantation records, and from the records of the 1st, 2d, and 3d South Carolina Volunteers, later mustered into regular service as the 33d, 34th, and 21st regiments of the U.S. Colored Infantry (USCI). More than a thousand slaves and free blacks from northeast Florida joined these regiments during the war. The records of their military careers and of their subsequent efforts to obtain pensions provide valuable

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insights into the lives of black soldiers and the world of slavery in northeast Florida at the time of its demise. Beyond the occasional standard newspaper advertisements for runaways, there is little evidence that slaves were absconding in sufficient numbers to prompt unusual anxiety among their owners dur ing the early months of the war. In May 1861 sawmill owner Samuel Fairbanks criticized Confederate training officers for concentrating on marching drills rather than high-visibility picket duty intended to intimidate slaves contemplating escape.2 The Federal seizure of Port Royal in November and the ensuing activity of the Union naval blockading squadron off the Florida coast prompted some planters to send their chattels away from the coastal zone for security.3 When rumors of slave insurrection plots spread throughout the region in December, owners accelerated security measures, but the surviving evidence indicates that northeast Florida slaveowners were not un duly alarmed that their chattels might escapeat least not in 1861.4 The editor of Jacksonville's Southern Confederacy > for example, had appeared unconcerned on February 1,1861, when he commented on free blacks who volunteered to help build Fort Steele at the mouth of the St. Johns River: "We understand that their patriotic example will be followed by all the other free colored men in this place. What will Messrs. Seward, Greeley, and Co. say to this? Gentlemen, are we not reposing on a mine?" With only thirty-one males between the ages of fourteen and ninety, Jacksonville's free blacks made at best a mini mal contribution to the work, as Captain Holmes Steele recognized in May when he solicited "the contribution of slave laborers, for a week or 10 days, for most important work on the fort at the mouth of the river."5 According to soldier Willie Bryant there was still plenty of "dirty smutty work going on" at Fort Steele on October 1, when an officer left for Jacksonville with a conscription list for slave laborers.6 The alarm bells sounded for northeast Florida's slaveowners in March 1862 when Yankee troops captured Fernandina, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville. For weeks preceding departure of the thirtythree-vessel flotilla under command of Flag Officer Samuel Du Pont, escaped slaves and white Union supporters had been arriving at Port Royal carrying valuable information about northeast Florida's coastal defenses. Isaac Tatnall, a former slave pilot of the steamer St. Marys, proved to be the most effective informant. As the Con-158 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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federate defenders had recently been ordered to the west by General Robert E. Lee to stop Union penetration in Kentucky and Tennessee, U.S. forces captured the northeast Florida ports while facing only scattered and disorganized resistance.7 As soon as Brigadier General Horatio G.Wright and the Third Brigade, U.S. Expeditionary Force, reached Fernandina, runaway slaves began crossing their picket lines. Wright observed on March 10: "Some of these people are left behind, and others are presenting themselves daily, coming in from different directions."8 From St. Augustine, Lieutenant J. W. A. Nicholson sent a similar report on March 21: "Several contrabands have delivered themselves to, or been arrested by, the guard at the entrance to the city. They have fled their masters who are in rebellion."9 Lieutenant Thomas Holdup Stevens was sent to Jacksonville with orders to "examine the condition of things" but not to "occupy any point on the St. Johns River." But once in the town, Stevens became so impressed by the numbers and sincerity of the remaining Union ists that he decided to take possession of the town. General Wright also concluded it would be wise to hold the town, as did the senior commander, General Thomas W. Sherman, who saw in Jacksonville the germ of a regeneration policy that might bring Florida back into the Union. Flag Officer Du Pont was willing to use naval force to pro tect the Jacksonville Unionists even if the infantry companies were withdrawn. This strong Union presence, coupled with the wideranging patrols of the gunboats, galvanized the black slaves of the region into action.10 Samuel Fairbanks hurriedly took his Negroes upriver when he learned of the Union incursion, and left them at what he thought to be a secure location in Clay County. After Fairbanks departed, how ever, his slaves John and Frank, a sawmill engineer and a laborer, stole a boat and paddled back to Jacksonville. Fairbanks tracked them down, but they refused to return to Clay County. Jacksonville's stillfunctioning civil authorities, many of them slaveowners, jailed the slaves for their "saucy behavior." Within days, John and Frank es caped from the jail and found refuge with naval vessels at Mayport, managing somehow to bring along John's wife, Charlotte.11 Frank continued on to Fernandina, but Fairbanks located John and Charlotte before they left Mayport and persuaded a Union officer Daniel L. Schafer

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to return them to his custody. While Fairbanks looked for a boat to carry the couple back to Clay County, however, the Federals evacu ated Jacksonville and carried Unionists and runaway slaves along with them. When the navy transports departed the St. Johns River on April 8, they carried away nine of Fairbanks's slaves. John and Frank later joined the Union army and died while serving their country.12 Friends of Fairbanks suffered even heavier losses, prompting plant ers to resort to harsh measures. In one escape, twenty-three men and women from three neighboring plantations fled together, pursued by an armed vigilante posse. One escapee was shot in the head and killed during the chase, prompting Confederate cavalry officer Winston Stephens to inform his slaves of the draconian measures being used to discourage runaway attempts. He also warned his wife to watch for three fugitives thought to be lurking near Welaka searching for the wife of one of the men. Stephens wanted them shot if recapture efforts failed.13 Union military records provide the names of some of the escapees. Joseph Cryer and his son Andrew escaped to Union lines from the Palm Valley plantation of Jacob Mickler, while James and Henry Adams fled Francis Richard's plantation on the St. Johns River. Andrew Murray, a native of St. Augustine, belonged to Joseph Finegan when he fled to Fernandina after hearing rumors of Federal forces there. Thomas Long and Charles McQueen made their way to Jacksonville and were aboard the Union transports when the city was evacuated on April 9,1862. Each of these men later volunteered for service in the Union army.14 The free African American population of northeast Florida also sought protection behind Union lines. Benjamin Williams was living in Jacksonville in i860, listed in the census as a native of Maine. Alonzo H. Phillips, born in Jacksonville, became a commissary ser geant in Company A, 3d South Carolina. Henry Hanahan, born free in 1833 at Pablo Beach, became a sergeant-major in the same company. Lewis Forester, born a slave but freed as a boy when purchased by his father, escaped to Fernandina in 1862. He volun teered for service in Company A, 1st South Carolina, on June 3, 1863. His brother, George Forester, joined the U.S. navy in 1862, as did Henry Johnson and James P. Lang. Other Duval County free Negroes who joined Union regiments were Albert Sammis, George 160 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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Floyd, Frank and Alexander Hagen, John Lacurgas, Charles Lang, Levi and William H. McQueen, Samuel Petty, John B. Richard, Wal ter Taylor, James Simmons, and Henry and James Williams.15 Union volunteers from St. Augustine in Company D, ist South Carolina, included Samuel Osborn and his son Samuel, Jr., free black residents since at least 1850. In an unusual occurrence, another Osborn son, Emmanuel, volunteered for the St. Johns Grays, a Con federate militia company formed in St. Augustine. It appears that free black families, like white families, could be divided by Civil War loyalties.16 Abraham Lancaster enlisted in Company F, ist South Carolina, in 1863. Other free blacks from St. Augustine who joined Union regiments were Pablo Rogers, James Lang, James Hills, James Ash, George Garvin, William Morris, Alexander Clark, and the Pappy brothers, Antony, Frank, and William.17 By the time the Jacksonville evacuation fleet reached Fernandina in April 1862, the exodus of black laborers had reached alarming proportions. But local slaveowners still thought they could regain control of their chattels. Fairbanks and Stephen Bryan, a wealthy Clay County planter, sailed to Fernandina on April 21 to test Union policy on this issue. They carried a letter from Lieutenant Stevens that described them as "gentlemen of character and influence" and urged Union officers to "give them whatever facilities your official position may afford toward securing the object of their mission."18 Disdaining the letter, an "abolitionist Lt. Colonel" refused to grant an interview. The slaveowners remonstrated that General Wright had "afforded every facility for masters to claim and take away their negroes" in Jacksonville, even "towing boats up the river with them." And in fact, two of Fairbanks's slaves had been aboard a Union vessel that returned from Fernandina to Jacksonville after the evacuation, under orders from General Wright to return fifty-two slaves to their owners.19 Before July 1862 Union policy on slave refugees had often been con fusing and inconsistent, depending on whether the officer in charge opposed or favored slavery. Logs of the St. Johns River gunboats document that black refugees picked up during patrols were routinely considered property of Confederates and were not returned to their owners. On April 1 and 2, 1862, for example, the Seneca picked up eleven "contrabands" and carried them to freedom at Hilton Head. Daniel L. Schafer 161

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Yet Lieutenant Stevens, naval commander on the St. Johns, tended to be extremely cooperative with Unionist slaveowners.20 General Wright also cooperated with Unionist slaveowners who remained behind Federal lines. Rebels were not accorded these privileges, with the exception of Wright's action in returning fifty-two slaves to Confederate command at Jacksonville. Before the transports left Jacksonville on April 10,1862, Wright had ordered every runaway removed and left at the town wharf. But his own men smuggled the escapees back aboard the ships and hid them during the journey to Fernandina.21 When Wright discovered the stowaways, he ordered they be returned to Jacksonville and left at the wharf to await their owners. At this late point in the war, such variations in policy should not have existed. The original congressional confiscation act of August 6, 1861, had authorized commanders to refuse requests for the return of slaves, but only if they had been utilized by Confederate forces. Abolitionist officers interpreted this act with wide latitude, while their conservative colleagues sometimes excluded all black refugees from Union lines. By March 13,1862, the growing power of radicals in Congress brought a tougher policy, which barred return of slaves to any claimant, even to Union loyalists. If guidelines were subject to individual interpretation before March 13, they were as clear as the possibility of court martial after that date. If the orders had not traveled as far as Jacksonville by April 10, they had certainly reached Admiral Du Pont by July, and henceforth no runaway slaves would be returned in northeast Florida.22 Until that time, Jacksonville slaveowners attempted to exploit the individual interpretations of Union policy. In late April, they sent Judge Burritt to Hilton Head to confer with General Hunter, hoping to obtain the return of slave runaways. Hunter, an avowed aboli tionist, was not encouraging. The audacious Burritt continued on to Washington, where he arranged to meet with President Lincoln. According to Fairbanks, Burritt found the president still a reluctant emancipator who would "not commit himself. But Burritt says that he thinks Lincoln is not an abolitionist and that the negroes will be returned at the end of the war."23 Burritt must have been surprised to discover later that year that he had misjudged the president. At the time of their interview, Lin-162 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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coin was still worried about losing the border states. In August 1861 he had rescinded John C. Fremont's declaration of martial law in Missouri, which freed the slaves of Confederates in that state, while commenting on the importance of holding on to Kentucky. In Octo ber 1861 he forced Secretary of War Simon Cameron to retract a statement advocating the freeing of rebel-owned slaves and arming them to fight for the Union. As late as May 1862 Lincoln rebuked General Hunter and revoked his order abolishing slavery in Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. Lincoln was playing a cautious hand so as not to alienate slaveowners in the border states. But the president was also being pressured by radicals in Congress to free the slaves as a military necessity. For months Lincoln pri vately contemplated an emancipation proclamation, but in public he attempted to persuade the border states to accept gradual and com pensated emancipation. When that policy was emphatically rejected by congressmen from the border states on March 13, 1862, Lincoln embraced the more radical position, still privately, and began work ing on a preliminary emancipation statement. He finally issued it in September, following the Northern victory at Antietam. In his address, Lincoln declared that all slaves in regions still in rebellion on January 1,1863, would be forever free. On New Year's Day he made it official and announced that the United States would begin enlisting blacks in its armed forces. Samuel Burritt need not ponder again the vagaries of Union contraband policy; in the future Federal armies would free his slaves. If Burritt had misread the president, so had many Northern abolitionists. In the meantime, slaves in northeast Florida continued to run away from their owners, even after Jacksonville was evacuated on April 10, 1862. Late in May, a gunboat anchored off Stephen Bryan's planta tion on Doctor's Lake, galvanizing "twenty-four of his negroes to escape and take refuge." The next day Bryan drove the remainder of his chattels, along with sixty-two from neighboring estates, to un occupied land in the interior. Although Winston Stephens was able to capture two runaways from Ocala who were trying to get to the gunboats near Jacksonville, he estimated that 1,500 black refugees had gathered in Fernandina by July 1862.24 Fairbanks predicted that 15,000 to 20,000 bushels of corn in the coastal area would go unharvested for lack of laborers. Winston Daniel L. Schafer 163

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Stephens agreed, saying planters would "not be able to save their crops." Late in August, Fairbanks was still complaining that "Negroes are gradually getting awaysingley and by two's and three'sthe coast is pretty near drained." Union military records at test to Fairbanks's accuracy. One of the singles escaping in July was David Flemming, who made it safely to Mayport, where he found freedom in a gunboat.25 In Tallahassee, Ellen Call Long received a letter from a friend in Jacksonville, saying her father had decided it was "impossible to keep negroes on the river now." After he "discovered our servants about to bid farewell to the place [the] next morning he packed them all off to the interior. Can you imagine how we get along without a single servant? . Father determined it was better to have a home with out servants than servants without a home. So we stay here living on cornbread and hope, our only consolation that we are no worse off than our neighbors."26 All the Jacksonville area slaveowners could share the anguish of a former St. Augustine merchant who lost fifteen slaves to the Union. Christian Boye wrote to his son: Those slaves of mine were worth to me a year ago, seventeen thousand dollars and there was some 10 young ones among them who increased in value every day. My yearly income from them was not less than $2000.00 to $2500.00. I could afford to send you and your sister to expensive schools. . This income is stopped, and God knows when it will begin again. I am obliged to use strictest economy, turn a penny a dozen times before I spend it. The loss of our slaves forces me to take Mary from school... as I cannot make enough to pay her school bills.27 Confederate General Joseph Finegan was one who sympathized. A long-time slaveowner in northeast Florida who had lost bondsmen to Union gunboats, Finegan understood the importance of slavery to Florida's economy and was willing to tailor Confederate strategy to protect that vital connection. In May 1862 Finegan began moving men and artillery to the lower St. Johns in an effort to stop the Union gunboat incursions. If he was successful future escapees, forced in land, would encounter military security and vigilantee patrols. Finegan had never accepted the truce delivered at the town wharf 164 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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to Lieutenant Colonel John Maxwell of the 3d Florida as Union forces left Jacksonville on April 10. The terms presented by gunboat com mander William Budd called for the U.S. navy to move its gunboats to the mouth of the St. Johns River to avoid further confrontation, but the Union intended to retain control of the major waterway in northeast Florida. Two or more gunboats would be based at Mayport to guard against blockade runners and to patrol upriver as far as Palatka. Residents were free to move in and out of Jacksonville providing that Confederate forces did not fortify the town nor harm Union loyalists who remained.28 Following the evacuation, three Confederate infantry companies moved into Jacksonville. Among the ranks of Company C of the 4th Florida was Washington Ives, an eighteen-year-old from Lake City. Until May 27, Ives's duty was on the waterfront, where he counted five gunboats pass the town with guns at the ready. In his diary, Ives recorded an uneasy truce, with armed pickets patrolling the town and cavalry and infantry companies drilling in camps to the west, while along the waterfront armed adversaries watched each other suspiciously across the water. But there was no fighting and people began returning to the town.29 Union officers tolerated these Confederate activities in Jackson ville but were alarmed when bands of regulators began organizing throughout the countryside and harassing Unionists. There were newspaper reports of "bands of guerrillas" conducting a "reign of ter ror" in the area, "murdering and destroying property."30 Lieutenant Daniel Ammen's investigation in late April confirmed that Unionists were in peril; he said of the refugees at Mayport: "They are wholly destitute, and I am obliged to feed them or see them starve."31 Late in June, Union Lieutenant J. W. A. Nicholson met in Jackson ville with Colonel John C. Hately of the 5th Florida Infantry to discuss violations of the truce. He warned that the navy would re taliate if the town was fortified or if the gunboats were fired upon. General Finegan later repudiated the agreement with a rebuke of Federal terms: "The threat of shelling our undefended town, con taining only women and children, is not consistent with the usages of war between civilized nations."32 These events had a marked effect on the future conduct of the war along the St. Johns. Until then, the Federals had tended to respect Daniel L. Schafer 165

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private property, including slaves, except when the owners were sus pected of maltreating Unionists or engaging in guerrilla activities. But the increased guerrilla activity placed this Federal policy in a questionable light. On June 17 Lieutenant Nicholson reported to his superiors that "the whole of the banks of the river as far as one can see is planted with corn. They say corn enough is in Florida for all of the Southern rebel States. If we carry their darkies off they can not gather it."33 Admiral Du Pont was in agreement. After considering the matter for several weeks, he made his decision on July 3. In reference to the contraband question, my instructions are to surrender none, no matter whether the parties asking for them profess to be loyal or not. There has been so much abuse of this privilege that it can no longer be granted. A glaring instance of it occurred in the case of the regulator Huston, whose slaves were returned to him on the false pretense of a neighbor that they belonged to a Union man. Even supposing the claimant may be loyal, yet if he takes his slaves among the rebels . [they are] liable to be seized at any moment and put to work erecting for tifications against our forces.34 By the time Du Pont came to this conclusion, the Confederate plan to close the St. Johns River to Union gunboats was already underway. Aware that he could succeed only if he was able to "evade the vigi lance of the enemy," and convinced that Union sympathizers were the main source of enemy intelligence, General Finegan ordered all small boats belonging to Unionists confiscated or destroyed and de creed that anyone suspected of harboring a Union loyalist was to be moved inland at least ten miles.35 With great ingenuity Finegan pulled together a rag-tail military force from around the state and during the first week of September installed it at St. Johns Bluff to "relieve the valley of the St. Johns from the marauding incursions of the enemy and ... to establish a base for operations against St. Augustine." It was a promising begin ning, but Finegan was plagued by a shortage of men and arms, and despite repeated requests he was not to receive reinforcements. When the Union gunboats next came up the river, they were stopped by Finegan's batteries on St. Johns Bluff. Samuel Fairbanks 166 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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was ecstatic. Had this action been taken sooner, Jacksonville would not have fallen to the Yankees in March and the slaves would never have escaped, Fairbanks proclaimed. He did, however, "hope that the negroes will go along without too much trouble."36 Finegan's measures proved only a temporary respite. On Octo ber i, 1862, as gunboats bombarded the Confederate gun instal lations, Yankee troops landed along the Pablo River and marched toward St. Johns Bluff from the land side, led by "Israel, our faithful Negro guide who ran away from Jacksonville a few weeks since and is thoroughly acquainted with all the country."37 The bluff was hastily abandoned while rebel troops retreated towards the interior. Union forces continued upriver to occupy Jacksonville again on October 5. During the second occupation of Jacksonville, the navy scoured the St. Johns for small boats and rafts, destroying several hundred in order to prevent their use by Finegan's troops. During these opera tions the gunboats roamed at will along the St. Johns, shelling the potentially dangerous structures along the river banks. Rebel-owned property was destroyed and confiscated, and endangered Union sup porters were evacuated. At Palatka, Commander Maxwell Woodhull of the Cimarron was concerned for the safety of several black refu gees who volunteered as river pilots and guides. Threats had been issued that they would be hanged and their families abused if the gunboats abandoned them. Woodhull thus evacuated several fami lies of "about thirty persons."38 While Finegan worked feverishly to regroup his demoralized troops and establish lines west of the town, slaves in the region realized that the chaotic conditions again favored escapes to freedom.Recognizing this, Samuel Fairbanks announced: "They shall probably steal what few negroes there are left and destroy at will."39 Fairbanks was furi ous to learn that the Federals had destroyed a thousand boats along the St. Johns, but after reconsideration he welcomed the act, saying that it might keep blacks from rowing to the gunboats. One group of enterprising contrabands found it possible to gain freedom without small boats. Lieutenant S. S. Snell and a small naval force worked in the Palatka area for two days to raise two barges sunk by the rebels. As soon as the barges were floating, forty-nine runaway slaves appeared on the shore, boarded the barges and were towed to Mayport.40 Daniel L. Schafer

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Most escaped alone or with their families. Men like James Bagley, James Bagley, Jr., Henry Harrison, Jackson Long, Lewis McQueen, and Benjamin Turner made their escapes to Jacksonville. Thomas Holzendorf escaped with his family to Fernandina. All of these men would later join Union regiments.41 At A. M. Reed's Mulberry Grove plantation south of Jacksonville, a mass runaway attempt was thwarted when the conspirators were discovered by a white neighbor. A family friend said of the event: All of Mr. Reeds negroes had packed up to go off at night and they were seen by [Peyre] Pearson and he ordered one of the men to stop and he then got Mr. Reed up and he went in the kitchen and there everything was ready and Perry attempted to run off and he was shot in the legs and I think they are sent off to be sold. Long legged Jake got to the Gunboat and the Yankees went back with him after his family but they had moved out in the country and Jake made a terrible fuss.42 A. M. Reed recorded the same event in his diary: "About 12 p.m. found my negroes preparing to leave. In the melee, Jake and Dave escaped carrying off my boat, the Laura Shaw."43 Reed acted swiftly to save his remaining slaves. His diary entry for October 6 states: "Started all the negroes ... for the interior." Reed must have been astonished on October 7 when the "U. S. Gunboat, Patroon, stopped at my wharf. Sent up Lieutenant Potts of the flagship, [and] Captain Steadman, with a file of men bringing the runaway, Jake, to get his family and things." Learning that his wife, Etta, had been sent into the interior, Jake could only remonstrate and return with the gunboat. But A. M. Reed had not seen the last of Jake. Union troops stayed in Jacksonville less than a week during the second occupation, leaving on October 11, 1862. As the transports steamed downriver, they carried what one naval officer judged to be "the most tangible result" of the entire expedition: the 276 "contrabands" who had reached Union lines. Looking back from one of the decks was the man A. M. Reed knew as "long-legged Jake." He would return the following summer wearing the uniform of the U.S. army.44 After the second occupation terminated, Finegan lamented: "The Yankees have taken all the negroes, free and slave, they could find in 168 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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the place."45 He ordered cavalrymen under Captain J. J. Dickison to round up all blacksfree or slaveand to remove them "from the St. Johns River into the interior at a safe distance from the enemy." Winston Stephens complained that the Yankees stole and vandalized, acting "more like black hearted scamps in Jacksonville than they ever have on the river."46 He also reported in mid-October that several blacks had been shot in Jacksonville, and that others were being ha rassed by Confederate cavalry. Samuel Fairbanks finally gave up in despair; concluding that slave property was no longer safe on the St. Johns, he took his two remaining slaves to be sold in Georgia. Other planters followed his example.47 Fairbanks, Finegan, Stephens, and the coastal African American slave population had all learned that freedom was no longer an im possible dream. It was as close as the St. Johns River and as sure as the power of the Federal gunboats that stood ready to receive and protect escapees. General Finegan would work diligently to keep runaways from reaching the gunboats, but his range of options had narrowed substantially. After the attempt to bar the gunboats from the St. Johns River had failed at the bluffs south of Jacksonville, Fine gan knew that Uncle Sam was on the river to stay. While Finegan and his Confederate command struggled to reassert control, contrabands flocked into Union-occupied Fernandina, St. Augustine, and Key West. Many found their way to Beaufort, South Carolina, where Union officers had been attempting since May 1862 to organize an experimental phalanx of black soldiers from the swell ing ranks of refugees. On August 25,1862, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, prompted by a shortage of men for operations in the South, issued orders to General Rufus Saxton to arm and equip up to five thousand "volunteers of African descent."48 By November 3,1862, Saxton was ready to test the men of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, sending Company A to raid the Florida and Georgia coasts. Saxton called the expedition a "perfect success. . The negroes fought with a coolness and bravery that would have done credit to veteran soldiers. .. They seemed like men who were fighting to vindicate their manhood and they did it well."49 The commander of the raid, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Beard, said: "I started from Saint Simon's with 62 colored fighting men and re-Daniel L. Schafer

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turned to Beaufort with 156 fighting men (all colored). As soon as we took a slave from his claimant we placed a musket in his hand and he began to fight for the freedom of others."50 General Saxton saw in the expedition the germ of a larger war policy, one that could cripple plantation production and force the Confederate command to divert manpower from northern battle fields. Calling the raid "one of the important events of the war, one that will carry terror to the hearts of the rebels," Saxton proposed to arm and barricade a number of light draft vessels, each manned by one hundred black soldiers, to run up the coastal rivers and capture plantations. Expecting hundreds of slaves to flock to the gunboat whistles, Saxton could "see no limit to which our successes might not be pushed [,] up to the entire occupation of States."51 Lieutenant Colonel Beard led his black troops on another Georgia coastal raid on November 13, but further application of Saxton's plan was delayed by the arrival of a new regimental commander. The man chosen to lead what would become the first black regiment officially mustered into the Union army was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, famed abolitionist, novelist, Unitarian preacher, and a captain in the Fifty-first Massachusetts Regiment. Sensing that a dramatic chapter in the history of the nation was about to be written, Higginson said: "I had been an abolitionist too long, and had known and loved John Brown too well, not to feel a thrill of joy at last on finding myself in the position where he only wished to be."52 A stickler for drill and discipline, Higginson put his troops through a rigorous training schedule that stressed order and military disci pline. But he was also able to implement some of his abolitionist ideals through daily talks to the troops on the meaning of freedom. They often followed the theme of his November 25 speech: "You are fighting for your own liberty and the liberty of your children. Nobody can make you free unless you have the courage to fight for your own freedom. And if you resolve to be free nobody can make you slaves."53 In his diary on December 2,1862, Higginson wrote: "Today Gen eral Saxton has returned from Fernandina with seventy-six recruits, and the eagerness of the captains to secure them was a sight to see." The following day he commented on a special company of "all Florida Men" who appeared to be "the finest looking company I ever saw, white or black; they range admirably in size, have remarkable 170 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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erectness and ease of carriage, and really march splendidly. Not a visitor but notices them; yet they have been under drill only a fort night."54 Higginson probably referred to Company G, which included fiftyseven Florida-born men among the first 106 enrollees. Samples from the regimental muster rolls indicate that the three loyal South Caro lina regiments enlisted more than a thousand men who had lived in northeast Florida before the war. Considering that the i860 Census listed 11,756 slaves, of both sexes and all ages, for Clay, Duval, Nas sau, and St. Johns counties, and that many owners either sold their chattels or moved them to more secure locations in the interior of the state prior to the arrival of Union troops, the 1,000 volunteers represent a significant percentage of the adult male slaves living in the region in 1862.55 The volunteers came from surprisingly diverse circumstances. Based on a sample of 364 recruits from the region, the median age was twenty-four, yet forty-two gave their ages at the time of muster as forty through sixty years. The majority of the recruits, 65 percent, were engaged in some form of agricultural enterprise. Ten percent were employed in skilled crafts: twelve were carpenters, two were machinists, two were tailors, one was a shoemaker, and one was a bricklayer. Two who had been free before the war were engineers. Fourteen men gave teamster, drayman, wagoneer, hosteler, or coach man as their occupations, while nine said they had been lumbermen or sawyers, and twelve said they were boatmen or sailors. Fiftyseven said they had been cooks, waiters, or servants in towns that drew business travelers and tourists. From St. Augustine alone came twenty-five waiters and three cooks. The loyal South Carolina regiments were often on duty in north east Florida. Higginson's first expedition into Florida came in Janu ary 1863 in the form of a raid up the St. Marys River on a mission to carry the Emancipation Proclamation into the interior, to plun der lumber mills, ransack the countryside, and gain needed supplies. It was a highly successful mission called by a Confederate in the Second Florida Cavalry a "general thieving expedition." Following a skirmish in which the Confederates were forced to withdraw, the soldier wrote: "What makes it more maddening is they are all nigger soldiers, officered by white men."56 Daniel L. Schafer

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The St. Marys River raid convinced General Saxton to send Higginson and his black troops up the St. Johns River. Saxton wrote: "I have reliable information that there are large numbers of ablebodied negroes in that vicinity who are watching for an opportunity to join us. The negroes from Florida are far more intelligent than any I have yet seen. . They will fight with as much desperation as any people in the world."57 The Second South Carolina would be formed primarily from sol diers recruited during this Florida campaign. Colonel James Mont gomery recruited his first two companies at Key West, where numer ous northeast Florida refugees had congregated. In March 1863 Montgomery took his "raw recruits" north for military training "at the mouth of the St. Johns River where they were allowed to fire a few shots to get used to their guns."58 On March 9, 1863, Higginson's expedition arrived off the mouth of the St. Johns, waiting until 2 A.M. on March 10 before starting upriver for Jacksonville under a bright moon. As they approached the city the Florida men became, in Higginson's words: "wild with de light" and called out: 'too much good.'"59 To the surprise of everyone, Jacksonville was occupied without a shot in opposition. There were about five hundred civilians in the town at the time, mostly whites who regarded the occupation by their former slaves as the "crowning humiliation" in their wartime experiences. The black soldiers were insulted and sworn at, particu larly by the women of the town. After claiming to be in "perpetual fear," several hundred people were permitted to leave the town in one forty-eight-hour period.60 Some residents had good reason to be fearful. Hattie Reed was frightened by a soldier who had only recently been the property of her father. She wrote to a family friend that Jake had returned a "bold soldier boy" after escaping to a Union gunboat in October 1862. Jake was looking for Hattie's father, threatening to take vengeance for the sale of his wife to buyers in Georgia. Hattie said that Jake wanted "to meet Pa face to face to teach him what it is to part man and wife." Reed was so frightened that he would not stay at his town residence. "We are moving away as many things as possible," Hattie said. Jake also put a gun to the head of a man who had helped deter the October runaway attempt by the Reed slaves. Later, when Jake was overheard 172 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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threatening to burn the Reeds' home, he was arrested and confined for the duration of the Union occupation.61 Another slaveowner savored the misfortunes of his former chat tels who returned, writing: "Our negro Ted was among the troops at Jacksonville, also Mrs. Duval's boy Henry. Henry was mortally wounded in one of their skirmishes and has since died. So out of five who left our plantation last year only two are well and strong. . Does this not seem a just retribution?"62 Higginson realized that many of his men "had private wrongs to avenge," but he kept a tight discipline, noting that they rarely talked of revenge. He later wrote: "I shall never forget the self-control with which one of our best sergeants pointed out to me, at Jacksonville, the very place where one of his brothers had been hanged by the whites for leading a party of fugitive slaves. He spoke of it as a his toric matter, without any bearing on the present issue."63 While the 33d USCI held Jacksonville against Confederate forays during the third occupation, Colonel Montgomery's incomplete 34th regiment took part in numerous skirmishes and battles, all the while recruiting heavily in the field to fill their ranks. Higginson vividly described these forays: In Colonel Montgomery's hands these upriver raids reached the dignity of a fine art. His conceptions of foraging were rather more Western and liberal than mine, and on these excursions he fully indemnified himself for any undue abstinence demanded of him when in camp. I remember being on the wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first trip. The steamer seemed an animated hencoop. Live poultry hung from the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter deck, and a duck's wings were seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck trousers.64 On March 27 Montgomery and 120 black troops started on an ex pedition upriver toward Palatka, raiding plantations along the way. Planter Thomas T. Russell reported that six landings were made while the black troops carried off slaves, horses, carts, poultry, hogs, cotton, salt, and "everything else they could lay their hands upon."65 The raids were anything but amusing to the Confederates. "They Daniel L. Schafer 173

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are robbing and plundering everything on the east bank," Finegan wrote, "[and plan] to occupy Jacksonville with white troops and send the negroes ... to Palatka and then attempt to move amongst the plantations."66 But Abraham Lincoln was delighted. On learning of the northeast Florida troops' activities, Lincoln wrote to General Hunter: "I am glad to see the accounts of your colored force at Jacksonville. ... I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, as is to be expected. It is important to the enemy that such a force shall not take shape and grow and thrive in the South, and in precisely the same proportion it is important to us that it shall."67 Shaken by the "celerity and secrecy" by which Lincoln's "aboli tion troops" seized Jacksonville, Finegan ordered troops from around Florida to concentrate to the west of the town to check Federal progress into the interior. "To do this," he wrote, "I am compelled to leave with entirely inadequate protection many important points on the coast where negroes may escape in large numbers to the enemy and where they have easy access to the interior."68 Recognizing that once again freedom was as close as the St. Johns River, Finegan warned the Confederate command that if a means to hold the river were not found, the entire slave population would be lost. He wired Richmond: The entire negro population of East Florida will be lost and the country ruined . unless the means of holding the St. Johns River are immediately supplied. ... To appreciate the danger of the permanent establishment of these posts of negro troops on the St. Johns River I respectfully submit to the commanding general that a consideration of the topography of the country will exhibit the fact that the entire planting interest of East Florida lies within easy communication of the river; that intercourse will immediately commence between negroes on the plantations and those in the enemy's service, that this intercourse will suffice to corrupt the entire slave population of East Florida.69 Well aware of Confederate reactions to the black troops, General Saxton informed Secretary of War Stanton: "The Negroes are col lecting in Jacksonville from all quarters."70 Saxton was convinced that "scarcely an incident in this war has caused a greater panic through-174 African Americans and the Civil War in Northeast Florida

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out the whole Southern coast than this raid of the colored troops in Florida." In tallying the successes of the mission, Saxton noted that two regiments had been augmented in numbers, that the occupation had received extensive coverage in the Northern press, and that white and black troops had served together for the first time during the war. Despite these successes the Union command decided to terminate the third occupation of Jacksonville. The troop transports steamed back to Beaufort carrying battle-tested veterans alongside raw recruits. Fernandina's burgeoning black population swelled beyond 15,000, prompting Colonel Milton S. Littlefield to recruit the first 101 volunteers for the 3d South Carolina (21st USCI) from the refu gee camps.71 The USCI regiments continued fighting for freedom in South Carolina until the war ended. The 34th regiment returned to Jackson ville in February 1864 and took part in the tragic battle of Olustee, suffering heavy casualties alongside black and white regiments from the North. Following Olustee the regiment stayed in Jacksonville, continuing to raid plantations for supplies and recruits.72 On September 4,1864, for example, Colonel William R. Noble led men from the 34th, the 35th, and the I02d USCI and white troops of the Ohio Mounted Infantry, along with the 3d Rhode Island Artillery on a four-day raid from Black Creek to the north of Lake George. The previous day, Dr. Esther Hill Hawks witnessed the concluding scenes of a mass runaway: thirty black refugees were seen south of Magnolia on the banks of the St. Johns River. They waved a flag until one of the gunboats picked them up and carried them to freedom in Jacksonville.73 The military record of the African Americans from northeast Florida is impressive. By escaping they had passed a test of courage; for the lure of freedom some would-be escapees paid with their lives at the hands of Confederate troops and vigilantees. Not content to have broken their personal chains of slavery, many who escaped joined the U.S. army and fought for the freedom of others, even knowing that the Union government paid them substantially less each month than it paid the white soldiers. The black troops also knew that they and their white officers were subject to execution by Confederate authorities if captured and de tained as prisoners of war, and to reenslavement if the Union cause Daniel L. Schafer